A new report claims that Microsoft has sparked internal unrest by disbanding an entire diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) team. A manager reportedly stated, “True systems-change work associated with DEI programs everywhere are no longer business critical or smart as they were in 2020.”
According to an email obtained by Business Insider, the team was eliminated due to “changing business needs” as of July 1st. The number of employees affected is unclear.
Microsoft has been one of the most assertive companies in enforcing DEI initiatives in the workplace. Their commitment to diversity has included implementing a “product inclusion framework” to guide game developers on making their video games more inclusive.
This framework suggests removing elements like attractive female character designs, ensuring strong and independent women have significant screen time, and avoiding “gender barriers in game code.”
DEI, often known as diversity, equity, and inclusion, is sometimes confused with ESG, or Environmental Social Governance. While both terms are often used interchangeably, there are subtle differences. DEI focuses on promoting marginalized individuals within the workforce, whereas ESG encompasses broader corporate policies and values.
The primary purpose of DEI is to increase the representation of marginalized groups in the workforce and elevate them within the company.
This stems from the goal of addressing the “wage gap,” a concept often highlighted by feminists, despite evidence showing that women typically pursue lower-paying fields compared to more hazardous, high-paying professions like trucking, agriculture, mining, and the oil industry, which are entirely male-dominated.
DEI initiatives can be seen as an evolution of the feminist movement, aiming to transform hiring practices and corporate culture to be more inclusive.
Affirmative action hires are a result of DEI. Traditionally, corporations hire employees based on their suitability for given roles, which includes considering appropriate credentials, background, and degrees. However, under DEI, hiring policies are curated by sex and race to prioritize individuals from underrepresented ethnic backgrounds, even if they aren’t as qualified.
This approach often focuses on increasing diversity by hiring women, transgender individuals, and people from ethnic minorities like Indian or African-American, regardless of their credentials or background.
When hiring policies are fixated on race and sexuality, companies tend to bring in a large number of new employees based on these criteria rather than their suitability for the job. This practice fulfills checkboxes for compliance, often to receive financial incentives.
A common issue with such hires is that they are generally left-leaning and tend to prioritize hiring others like themselves.
The direct result of DEI hiring policies can be seen in the influx of workers who may not be the best fit for their roles, leading to a decline in company performance.
These employees, often holding extreme left-wing views, focus on further diversifying the workforce rather than prioritizing competence, thereby impacting the company’s overall effectiveness and brand reputation.
When a company deliberately employs DEI officers to ensure compliance, you know things have gotten out of hand. These professional advocates often gain significant internal control over the content being made. This is where adherence to globalist ideologies, akin to BlackRock’s ESG initiatives, comes into play.
ESG and DEI share similar criteria but ESG focuses more on a company’s marketing and products. Instead of scrutinizing hires based on skillset, complying with ESG mandates often means a company dedicates itself to producing racially inclusive and diverse material, which can backfire with consumers.
A notable example is Bud Light, which suffered catastrophic financial losses after a social media promotion featuring transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney as a brand ambassador, costing the brewer billions of dollars.
This highlights the ramifications for corporations whose main target audience is middle-aged men, who often react negatively when a company aggressively pushes diversity agendas.
For instance, Tractor Supply recently backtracked on plans to adhere to ESG and DEI agendas.
They scrapped plans to sponsor pride festivals, eliminated DEI roles within the company, and refused to submit data to the Human Rights Campaign for a corporate equality index score.
Tractor Supply, one of the largest agricultural businesses in America, had to reverse these initiatives because promoting diversity, inclusivity, and LGBTQ+ to American farmers is comparable to trying to sell Black Lives Matter shirts at a KKK rally.
This obtuse trend of pandering is evident in the video game industry. Games are now often focused on erasing attractive female figures as the industry pivots towards normalizing the sexualization of men while making female characters appear more masculine and androgynous, and imposing self-censorship to avoid offending various groups.
For example, Atlus’ Persona 3 Reload removed a “transgender joke” scene from the remake, and Capcom race-swapped a character in their upcoming Dead Rising remake to avoid an Asian stereotype.
Nintendo’s re-release of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door retroactively changed various dialogue interactions to remove tropes portraying Princess Peach as helpless, removed dialogue referencing catcalling, and retconned the character of Vivian to now be considered transgender.
Inclusivity of such groups is what ESG is all about. In today’s media, it seems like there’s an overrepresentation of LGBTQ+ characters, while video games now predominantly feature stereotypical Black protagonists and or repulsive female characters.
One example is XBOX’s reboot of Perfect Dark, where the protagonist of Joanna Dark has been reimagined into an unattractive, man-faced transvestite, drastically deviating from her original portrayal for a more ambiguous design.
These are the agendas that many companies strive for nowadays, despite incurring massive financial losses. Many game developers, after consulting with diversity consultancy firms like Sweet Baby Ink, have gone out of business, such as the developers of the Saints Row reboot, Volition, and the team behind Square Enix’s Forspoken.
Sony’s upcoming live service hero shooter “Concord” features some of the most inclusive and representative character designs seen in gaming with their own accompanying pronouns. Perhaps that’s why the games beta failed to attract anybody.
ESG agendas are being enforced upon consumers who are starting to reject the notion. Forced diversity and inclusion not only come off as insincere but also result in poor-quality products.
It certainly doesn’t help that developers and their allies in game journalism continually berate consumers, accusing them of racism for rejecting their dogshit representation.
Simultaneously, journalists harass those who fail to adhere to woke regulations and frequently demand the removal and censorship of “problematic” elements. Examples include the campaigns of “sexism” launched against Shift Up’s Stellar Blade and Black Myth: Wukong developers Game Science.
DEI and ESG go hand in hand. First, feminists are brought into the company, and then they advocate for changes that can steer it into the ground, costing the company massive amounts of money in the process.
The XBOX brand has suffered as a result. Microsoft has laid off thousands of employees over the past year and closed several studios that produced financial failures, and continues to push the XBOX brand as a live service with its Game Pass subscription service, which recently increased prices just before the release of this year’s Call of Duty.
Companies have focused on hiring inclusive employees over more competent workers, bringing in radical leftists and progressive individuals who advocate for making White people a minority within their own nation.
Objecting to this is often labeled as racist, a label that many people fear despite the fact that BBC Gaming presenter Jules Hardy advocated for a purge of gamers who dared object to games undergoing ESG and DEI curational services.
Sony, for example, censors Asian video games featuring attractive female characters and fanservice while allowing raunchy sex scenes and nudity in games with queer themes, such as The Last of Us Part 2. Microsoft is similarly focused on agendas over profit, leading to a significant decline in recent years.
The prospect of Microsoft disbanding its DEI team is seen as a positive move, potentially giving fans hope that the company might stop forcing androgynous queer protagonists on gamers.
However, despite the DEI team being scrapped, Microsoft spokesman Jeff Jones committed the company to diversity and inclusion moving forward, stating, “Our D&I commitments remain unchanged.”
Microsoft had invested $150 million in diversity and inclusion back in 2020, following the death of George Floyd, a career criminal whose death sparked months of “fiery but mostly peaceful” protests resulting in the destruction of countless stores and homes which were set on fire and or looted because of “systematic racism.”
It’s no surprise that Microsoft is merely sacking more employees while upholding the core values of DEI, which remain imperative to the company. Microsoft typically cuts its workforce around this time of year when its fiscal year ends.
Layoffs at Microsoft and other tech companies have become more frequent lately. Last year, Microsoft announced plans to cut 10,000 jobs in the first few months of 2023, and it has since made additional rounds of layoffs.
Microsoft, like many other corporations, doesn’t seem to care about the financial losses. Instead, they are focused on using video games to push a destructive agenda and lifestyle among audiences. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with genuine inclusivity, the industry as a whole is now fixated on race and sexuality.
The industry now scrutinizes White people, especially heterosexuals, going above and beyond to replace women with masculine renditions. Given that the vast majority of gamers are men from diverse backgrounds, it makes sense why modern games filled with political propaganda and made by aggressive activists fail to resonate.
This forced inclusivity comes off as insincere to gamers, as such characters are often unlikable and accompanied by poorly written narratives.
These activist developers, such as Mary Kenney, formally of Insomniac Games however has made the shift to join CD Projekt Red previously cited false statistics on LGBT representation in gaming, claiming that “every lever must be pulled” to introduce more LGBT characters.
Ubisoft’s latest game, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, blatantly disrespects Japanese culture and heritage by pushing a falsified narrative about Yasuke, a Black samurai. His story, largely a fiction by Western author Thomas Lockley, is leveraged by Ubisoft to make Yasuke the main protagonist.
Despite having scant historical remnants and supposedly serving as a retainer to Oda Nobunaga, Ubisoft has turned Yasuke into a full-fledged samurai in their game. He is depicted decapitating Japanese people to the backdrop of EDM music.
Naturally, consumers were appalled and disgusted by Ubisoft culturally colonizing and appropriating Japan’s prestigious Sengoku period.
A petition to cancel the game reached over 80,000 signatures. Meanwhile, Ubisoft held an “authentically Japanese” exhibit at the 2024 Japan Expo, featuring cheap Amazon knickknacks and a replica sword from the popular Japanese franchise One Piece, supposedly as Yasuke’s very own sword.
Meanwhile, a progressive boycott is targeting Chinese developer miHoYo over alleged cultural appropriation in Genshin Impact’s upcoming introduction of the Natlan region, which is supposedly based on African culture and features African deities.
The boycott, driven by accusations of racism, demands authentic representation in a game made by Chinese developers. Critics are taking it upon themselves to “fix” miHoYo’s creations by blackwashing artwork featuring these characters.
As you’d expect outlets such as IGN were quick support the boycotters, facilitating the narrative of miHoYo whitewashing African culture, while simultaneously having ignored the likes of Assassin’s Creed Shadows and Hades 2 blackwashing Greek gods.
There’s no need to worry about a potential resurgence for Microsoft, as they have been losing money hand over fist in terms of game sales on Xbox, primarily due to their strategy of releasing games on Game Pass at launch. Titles like Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II, Redfall, and Hi-Fi Rush have all suffered from this approach.
Especially with their upcoming reboots of Perfect Dark and the Fable series, which are shaping up to be some of the most UGLY games on the horizon, Microsoft clearly isn’t changing direction anytime soon. If anything, they’ll continue to bleed money with each subsequent release boring players with androgyny.
Microsoft are merely starting to feel the heat from continued failures in a market bound for destruction, as PlayStation’s very own Mark Cerny invertedly admitted that a total video game industry crash is very much on the cards given the expensive nature of game development which requires more time and money today than it ever did before.
The industry literally cannot afford to try anything new and original, which is why we’re seeing a glut of reboots and remasters these days.
Creating an original franchise is not only more complicated and costly, but given the current development landscape, where many developers are activists, there’s a noticeable lack of creativity. Instead, they’re more than happy to destroy and bastard beloved franchises both new and old.
Producing senseless remakes and remasters reimagined with with progressive nonsense with even the most iconic female characters in video gaming being stripped of their femininity, beaten over the head with the ugly stick.
This is why the only genuinely profitable video games these days are mobile-oriented gacha games like Goddess of Victory: NIKKE, Genshin Impact, First Dependents, and Wuthering Waves.
Not only are they much cheaper to produce but still provide consumers with what they want: games featuring attractive women and cute girls, enticing players to spend senselessly to acquire them.
The Western games industry no longer caters to its target audience by producing quality titles with attractive women. Instead, they hire good-looking actresses to capture their likenesses, only to deliberately botch their appearance and turn them into unrecognizable sexless and flat abominations solely to adhere to ESG principles.
This shift has allowed nations like China and Korea to dominate the industry with regressive, time-gated games that ultimately outperform modern Western releases and globalized Japanese titles.
Even Japan, the land of the rising sun, is now struggling under the weight of pandering to international audiences as their anime and manga industry is being deliberately targeted by the likes of Blackstone while their large game corporations develop games with ESG principles in mind, resulting in censorship and monumental losses of profit for companies like SEGA, Square Enix and Bandai Namco.
And this is exactly why the games industry is on its last legs. Consumers have noticed these trends and have seen developers and journalists label them as racist bigots for rejecting their products. They gaslight the public about consultation services like Sweet Baby Inc. not resulting in games being deemed “woke” and “sanitized.”
There’s no way for the industry to course correct now, as they would need to have abandoned ESG mandates years ago. Projects in early development will still take years to produce, time they don’t have, as a single financial failure can lead to a studio’s downfall.
Microsoft is likely just nervous about losing so much money, yet they remain committed to diversity and inclusivity across their corporate ladder and in the products they produce. Industry-wide layoffs will continue as their DEI hires continue driving the XBOX brand into the ground.
Meanwhile, consumers continue to be repulsed and disappointed by upcoming game products as they are pushed out of an industry that now caters almost exclusively to the likes of BlackRock and the LGBT community.
