Games with black protagonists and characters were derided as forced. Female characters considered unattractive or masculine suffered from “chin DEI.” Dragon Age: Veil Guardwas criticized by far-right trolls for its customization options, which allow players to create characters with superior surgery scars or play with a non-binary partner. After the reviews were published, conspirators latched onto cliched phrases or other language as proof that studio BioWare was instructing critics how to talk about their game.
Even titles not yet published faced the bombardment. Compulsion games South of midnightabout a young black woman in the Deep South, drew the ire of anti-DEI crowds on platforms like X, where they have retouched the heroine to make her seem less “repulsive” and presented conspiracy theories about Sweet Baby’s influence on the game’s development.
But the pressure to remain apolitical – a curious agenda for a form of entertainment that combines the artistic preferences of narrative and imaginary worlds with the agency granted to the players who inhabit them – didn’t just come from a vocal minority. After the release of Black Myth: WukongSome streamers were instructed to avoid talking about Covid-19 or “feminist propaganda.” The guidelines had the opposite effect, encouraging streamers to lead with the keywords they had been banned from – a push against standards meant to censor players.
Looking to the future 2025, Ball says he’s hearing more doom and gloom overall, but “it’s just shitty to contemplate, let alone predict.” If there is an advantage, he says, it is that “there is a lot more hiring going on than is generally believed. The bad thing is that it doesn’t pay off in general, especially in the independent ones.”
As 2024 comes to a close, the industry is operating (from the outside) with a business-as-usual mentality. In early December, the developers gathered in Los Angeles to celebrate The Game Awards. On stage, host Geoff Keighley gave a short speech, amid game announcements, praise and a performance by Snoop Dogg.
“The sad reality is that in recent years the gaming industry has suffered significant and unprecedented layoffs across the industry,” Keighley said. “That affects the games we play and, even more importantly, the people who make the games we love. “We can debate and certainly disagree about the reasons, and honestly, as a show, we struggle with knowing how to address these issues in a constructive way.”
Keighley used the segment to present the TGA’s first “game changer” award, a nod to an individual who has positively impacted the industry. Then the show continued, with headline-dominating announcements about major projects like The witcher 4 and the next title the last of us developer Naughty Dog.
In the middle of all this is the specter of AI. There’s still little information about how much AI will continue to grow and how future games might use it, but it’s a growing concern as rank-and-file workers are laid off. No one knows when, or if, the industry will recover with sustainable jobs and compensation. Yes, there will be games to play. It’s harder to say how many people will be able to do them.