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Lords of the Fallen studio CI Games says it will not integrate “any social or political agendas” into its games because doing so, it claims, incurs a “high risk” of commercial failure.
The statement was made during a recent investors chat (via Strefa Inwestorów), during which CI Games was asked about its “stance on DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] in gaming.” In response, global marketing director Ryan Hill said the studio priotizies “excellent user experience with compelling thematics and characters created specifically for core and adjacent audiences,” and then rolled into what I would call a pretty ill-informed take on the current state of the game industry.
“While some videogames have recently taken the opportunity to embed social or political agendas within their experiences, it is clear that many players do not appreciate this, and as a result, we have seen a number of high profile releases underperforming commercially during the last year alone,” Hill said. “Our games will always be developed to maximise player enjoyment and commercial success, and as such, we will not be integrating any social or political agencies into these experiences going forward having observed the high risk this can present.”
Hill didn’t explain how exactly he or CI Games defines DEI, which has become shorthand slang for “things I don’t like” among some parts of videogame fandom, nor did he offer any examples of games that failed due to their “social or political agendas.” Concord and Dustborn are commonly held up as examples of such, but the reality is that they’re just two of literally thousands of games—19,000 new games on Steam alone in 2024—that failed to find an audience over the past year. And in the case of Concord in particular, it arguably just wasn’t a great game—we gave it a 45% in our review, and not because we didn’t think the cast was white enough
He did, unfortunately, lend credence to the ugly and patently false assertion that DEI is ruining gaming by—well, that’s not really clear either. But that almost doesn’t matter: As a hot-button buzzword among angry, reactionary gamers, the DEI boogeyman doesn’t need a definition, it just needs to stir up lizard brain emotions on the way to generating views.
Hill’s comments stand in sharp contrast to those expressed by another Polish studio, Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt: On its diversity and inclusion page, which does in fact define the studio’s approach to DEI in detail, CEO Adam Kiciński says “a diversity of perspectives unlocks creativity and increases innovation.”
CI Games declined to comment on Hill’s statement.
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Kurt Indovina
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