Posted on September 19, 2024

DEI May Assassinate Ubisoft

Gregory Hood, American Renaissance, September 19, 2024


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Some could argue it all began with GamerGate.

Just before Donald Trump came down the escalator at Trump Tower and began the modern political era, a coalition of leftist game developers and critics attacked the traditional culture of video games. In response, gamers retaliated, especially against the “video game journalists” who pushed left-wing nonsense despite sometimes being in bed (literally) with the people they were supposed to be covering.

“GamerGate” birthed right-wing tactics of analyzing, mocking, and occasionally leading boycotts against new games, shows, and comics. The movement failed to stop the left-wing takeover; progressives have become more established than ever.

Americans spent almost $60 billion on games in 2021, though that figure has declined slightly. But spending is increasing again — with almost $5 billion spent in July 2024 alone. For comparison’s sake, the United States and Canada brought in just $7.5 billion in movie box office revenue in all of 2022. Video games are not just as big an industry as films; they may have just as much cultural power.

DEI is a priority for many gaming companies. A Meta vice president called diversity an “economic imperative” for games. Most gamers are non-white, and they tend to play for more hours. Anita Sarkeesian, who began her career by lecturing about the “male gaze” in gaming and other evils, now gives talks at development conferences and is a consultant for “inclusive video game support services.”

Sweet Baby Inc. is another “consulting” firm that lectures companies on DEI. Clients include publishers of such major games as God of War: Ragnarök and Spider-Man 2. The former peppered Norse mythology with blacks. The Gamer said approvingly of Spider-Man 2: “Queerness is Everywhere.”

That’s what drove GamerGate: the alliance of gaming journalists, developers, and left-wing activists.

There may not even be a distinction between these categories. A recent game from Saber Interactive, Space Marine 2, is a smash hit, but its CEO is under fire for allegedly saying it was a “throwback game” that got away from “overblown messaging or imposing morals on gamers.” Now, you can take fire for avoiding politics.

It’s apparently irrelevant that there is a large audience for an “old-fashioned” game that remains true to the lore of its franchise. Even the company that controls the very successful Warhammer 40K, Games Workshop, seems to resent its audience. It recently broke its previous lore and turned male characters into women to win a new audience and media approval.

There will always be politics in games. Leftist critics are right that the old “apolitical” games with traditional heroes and values were political; they just seemed more natural. Gaming was a form of escapism for many whites. They could step outside an unsatisfying reality into a virtual world where they are strong warriors conquering kingdoms, saving the princess, and winning renown. Leftists concluded, accurately, that this reinforced ideas they found offensive, even though we call them normal.

Media reflect reality, but can also shape it. For this reason, Auron MacIntyre says in The Total State that every cultural field becomes a battleground in a democracy. The federal government certainly agrees. The FBI is tracking “extremist” gamers. The government paid almost $700,000 for a study of how “extremists have used video games and targeted video game communities for activities ranging from propaganda creation to terrorist mobilization and training.”

Sometimes publishers “reimagine” old franchises to suit modern tastes. In the latest version of God of War, the protagonist, Kratos, stopped being a brutal warrior and became a guilt-ridden father. Much of the game was essentially a movie, with Kratos pausing the action to speechify about his moral growth. Some players mocked it, but the game won almost universally positive reviews and became one of the fastest selling games of all time. By November 2023, Sony had sold about 15 million units. Audiences are not always turned off by deconstruction.

The trick is to do it effectively. Players generally do not want to be lectured, and blunt politics can break immersion in a game. “Race-swapping” and trying to shame audiences often fare poorly. A Resident Evil television series based on the iconic video game turned a main character from white to black. “I think when you are casting in the modern day and age, if you are limiting yourself based on, ‘Well, this character is blonde, so we gotta look at blonde actors,’ you’re gonna find yourself in a bad position,” explained the showrunner. It failed after one season. The race-swap wasn’t the only reason, but it didn’t help.

Star Wars is probably the franchise that has most suffered from retooling. The latest film installments were poorly received and the television programs fared worse. The Acolyte, a series that highlighted non-whites and homosexuals, was canceled after one season. Actress Amanda Stenberg, a non-white actress who has had various sexual orientations during her career, said she was not surprised by the flop, because “there has been a rampage of vitriol that we have faced since the show was even announced.” She said she had to “honor my value system by being vocal.”

 Media mourned and raged against the fans:

This cultural battle may take down one of the biggest gaming companies in the world. Ubisoft is known for Prince of Persia, Watch Dogs, and Assassin’s Creed. However, its latest major game is Star Wars Outlaws.

 It has reportedly opened to poor sales, and at least one analyst predicts worse is to come. Reviews are also middling, which is surprising because critics are usually more favorable than audiences to political messages. The game stars a pretty non-white actress, Humberly Gonzalez, who loves to jabber about immigration, race, and gender. However, in her game version, designers strangely decided to make her notably less attractive, with a clearly mannish jaw. The director and some media outlets seized on this as an excuse to denounce toxic fans. This is part of efforts by some activists to liberate gaming from the male gaze, presumably by having unattractive characters.

Or perhaps more substantive issues drove its failure. Many note that games seem to be getting worse in terms of graphics, smooth play, story, and other fundamentals, despite better technology. This may be because the people making them are more interested in politics than entertainment. Whatever the reason, Ubisoft is in major trouble. Its stock has fallen by more than 50 percent this year. Hedge fund AJ Investments is trying to start a shareholder rebellion, arguing that the company is “mismanaged.” Ubisoft already slashed new projects last year and tried to limit expectations. It cut 124 workers in late 2023, even before the current crisis.

Ubisoft is a pillar of DEI in gaming. Its mentorship program deliberately chooses “women and non-binary individuals” to build “creative, diverse, and inclusive teams.” Ubisoft also signed a first-in-the-industry deal with the British police to snoop on “harmful online interactions” between players and report them for prosecution. “We want to be on the right side of history,” said a Ubisoft senior director.

The stock plunge raises the stakes for Ubisoft’s next major game, the latest installment of Assassin’s Creed. The series features battles between Templars and Assassins, both loosely based on the Crusades. The two fit into what has become the myth of the West since World War II: The Templars (historically European and Christian) are repressive and authoritarian, obsessed with order. The Assassins (non-white, non-Christian and therefore morally superior) support liberation and freedom. Modern characters are genetically linked to their historical ancestors, an interesting endorsement of heredity.

The last installment of the series was set during the Viking Age. Players could be either a male or female character, and could swap sexes any time. Non-whites roam England and Scandinavia, BIPOCs are prominent Viking warriors, women are somehow accomplished fighters, and homosexual relationships are common. Much of the game was about raiding churches and slaughtering Christians. The pagans who came to conquer England are somehow more tolerant and wholesome than the British.

Even if you never played the game, you already know its moral premises. As in the film Kingdom of Heaven that came out shortly after the September 11 attacks, the only true sin is intolerance, with white Christians the worst source of moral contamination. The Viking version of Assassin’s Creed claimed to be rooted in historical research, part of the general trend of rewriting European history. Academics are especially worried that white gamers might be inspired by the Medieval knights or Vikings. Until groups such as American Renaissance get more influence, few institutional experts will fight this hijacking of white history.

The same may not be true of Japan, where the next installment in Assassin’s Creed, called Shadows, is to be set. Certainly, Japanese culture is well known in the West, and many would want to play a historical character such as the legendary swordsman Miyamoto Musashi. However, the main character in this game is a black man. This is a strange choice for a series about mysterious ninja-like assassins who can disappear into a crowd. Japanese in the Warring States period would notice the only black guy.

Credit Image: © Imago via ZUMA Press

The character is reportedly based on Yasuke, who was supposedly a black samurai. Yasuke existed, but there is little evidence to suggest that he was a high-ranking samurai or perhaps even a samurai at all. According to the New York Times, which ran an article attacking fans in both the West and Japan for criticizing the game:

Yu Hirayama, a historian at the Japan University of Health Sciences who specializes in the Sengoku [Warring States] period, said that Yasuke’s samurai status was not in question. “There are very few historical documents about him, but there’s no doubt that he was a ‘samurai’ who served Nobunaga,” Hirayama wrote on social media.

He was referring to Oda Nobunaga, a warrior and feudal lord who helped unify Japan and provided Yasuke with a house, stipend and sword. According to limited historical records, Yasuke arrived in Japan under the service of a Jesuit priest and was eventually summoned by Nobunaga. Nobunaga elevated Yasuke’s status for unknown reasons, and little is certain about what happened as his benefactor’s grip on power loosened. Some records indicate that Yasuke was eventually returned under the custody of Jesuits.

Yasuke’s obscurity doesn’t matter to the Times: “Authenticity also needs to blend into a fanciful game world where characters might leap off buildings into leaf piles unscathed or encounter mythological creatures in the woods.” An executive producer also said that the series would not be “shying away from having a critical point of view and defying cliches to go beyond what is the accepted truth.”

What is the “accepted truth” about Yasuke? It’s not clear whether Yasuke was a powerful warrior, a servant, or a kind of exotic pet, with the novelty wearing off after Nobunaga died. A 2019 CNN story heavily relies on the work of Thomas Lockley, who wrote African Samurai: The True Story of Yasuke, a Legendary Black Warrior in Feudal Japan. However, both the author and CNN have a political agenda. “Lockley says his story has reemerged just as homogenous Japan reexamines the concept of multiculturalism in the run-up to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.” In a story for Kyodo News+, Mr. Lockley admitted he had to make a lot of “research-based assumptions” and said Yasuke’s story matters because there is supposedly “a growing appreciation of Japan’s multicultural heritage.” It is easy to see why Western journalists and progressive game developers jumped on the story.

Yet now that Mr. Lockley’s work is in the spotlight, some say he makes bold claims in English that go well beyond the less impressive (and entertaining) facts in primary sources. His extraordinary claim that Yasuke saved Oda Nobunaga’s neck from the enemy has almost nothing to support it. Mr. Lockley is almost single-handedly responsible for Yasuke’s sudden prominence in the West.

Mr. Lockley has now shut down his social media, claiming that he had to stop the hate mail. However, there are also allegations he has been editing Wikipedia entries about Yasuke. If nothing else, his career is an example of the way flimsy evidence and circular reasoning can help build a powerful narrative that supports political goals. This could ultimately include filling Japan with non-Japanese. Mr. Lockley reportedly supports refugees; he says it’s because his grandmother fled the Nazis.

Online commentators are digging deep into the historical research, doing the job the New York Times refuses to do.

More than 105,000 people have signed a petition in Japan accusing Ubisoft of a “lack of historical accuracy and cultural respect.” A member of the Japanese Diet also called for a government investigation. Elon Musk had his say on X:

Ubisoft released a defensive statement to “our esteemed Japanese community” pledging to support the “historical and cultural integrity of your rich heritage.” It acknowledges a few mistakes, but the most telling is the admission that Yasuke’s status is up for debate: “While Yasuke is depicted as a samurai in Assassin’s Creed Shadows, we acknowledge that this is a matter of debate and discussion.” Ubisoft admits Yasuke’s status is debatable, but discussing it on the Assassin’s Creed Reddit will get you banned.

There is another view of the game: cultural appropriation. It is easy to imagine an Assassin’s Creed set in Africa, at the time of the rise of Shaka Zulu. Obviously, an African would play him. It is hard to imagine the hero as a white man, or, even more bizarrely, an Asian, Arab or Indian.

In the game Resident Evil 5, a white hero traveled to Africa. Not surprisingly, he was killing mostly black enemies and zombies. This was extremely controversial even though it made sense. Somehow, Ubisoft saw no problem with a “true story” about a black man ambushing and slaughtering Japanese. Many Asians endure only slightly less dramatic attacks from Africans in American cities. Does Ubisoft want to remind us of that?

Ideology has a way of blinding people to the obvious. We whites may grumble when even historical dramas race-swap actual people, but that won’t matter if most whites continue to believe in colorblindness. However, few really believe Japan will remain Japanese if it fills up with blacks, that non-Japanese people should lecture the Japanese about their history, or that a game about Japan should reflect American racial complexes. White guilt does not apply. Some critics who might remain silent about cultural insults to whites are therefore willing to speak up about this.

A decade after GamerGate, once-fringe left-wing racial politics are firmly established at many gaming companies. However, the gaming marketplace is fiercely competitive and may be more receptive to market pressure than film and television. Ubisoft increasingly looks like a studio that has peaked because it pushed politics over quality games. It may be a stretch to say that DEI is to blame for games’ declining quality, but for players, any effort wasted on DEI would be better spent elsewhere. Gamers will not pay increasingly high costs to sit through a glorified HR seminar.

Ubisoft better choose. The stock-price collapse, the failure of the new Star Wars game, and a major controversy over a flagship title could put Ubisoft out of business. “Get woke, go broke” is often an agreeable fantasy for our side, but a targeted boycott could make a big difference here. Assassin’s Creed fans should snub this latest ham-handed DEI spectacle. If gaming is to return to quality, at least one major company is going to have to pay the price. Ubisoft has set itself up for a richly deserved failure.