It’s More Than Woke Storylines Ruining Video Games

In the past year alone, titles like “Assassin’s Creed: Shadows” (which featured a romance between a bisexual black samurai and a nonbinary Japanese character) and the remastered version of “The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion” (which replaced the “female” and “male” options from the original game with “Body Type 1” and “Body Type 2”) have drawn significant backlash.

But forcing woke content into video games isn’t the only way progressives are trying to ruin the gaming industry.

Now, they’re coming for its business model.

Recently, the American Economic Liberties Project (AELP), a think tank stacked with progressives, cheered a major court victory against Google’s app store that they aggressively pushed.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Epic Games’ case against Google was legitimate. Per the suit, Google forced developers into a rigid system with up to 30% fees, banning rival app stores and alternative payment methods, hurting both creators and consumers.

But don’t be fooled. AELP’s broader agenda has nothing to do with helping gamers or developers. Its antitrust crusade would shackle gaming — and every other innovative industry — under permanent bureaucratic control.

For example, AELP was the loudest cheerleader for the Biden-era push to block Microsoft from acquiring Activision-Blizzard — a case the Trump administration just killed.

Biden’s FTC, egged on by AELP, claimed Microsoft would make “Call of Duty” and Overwatch Xbox exclusives, supposedly “suppressing competitors” in consoles and cloud gaming. They wouldn’t have. Microsoft committed to keeping “Call of Duty” on PlayStation and bringing it to Nintendo.

Courts saw through the AELP’s claims. A federal U.S. judge rejected the FTC’s suit in 2023, and by May 2025, Trump’s FTC wisely dropped the case. Even the ultra-liberal European Union approved the Microsoft-Activision deal.

Liberal activists like those at AELP may not want to admit it, but the truth is that gaming is a fiercely competitive industry. It doesn’t need Washington activist groups or government bureaucrats picking winners and losers.

Consider the very video game example that AELP loves to harp on — “Call of Duty.”

Yes, it’s a mega-blockbuster franchise that has sold over 500 million copies since 2003. But it is far from unstoppable. When “Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare” launched in 2016, its reveal trailer was ratioed with 4 million dislikes to 667,000 likes. 

Four days later, video game developer DICE unveiled “Battlefield 1” — a rival shooter with a World War I setting — and its trailer’s likes outnumbered dislikes 37-to-1. “Infinite Warfare” only outsold “Battlefield 1” because it bundled a remaster of “Modern Warfare.” Activision learned its lesson and abandoned the futuristic setting.

Market dominance in gaming seldom lasts. AELP argues that video game consoles “rely on unique intellectual property that cannot simply be replicated,” but that’s simply not true. Blockbuster franchises are frequently copied, challenged, and displaced.

For example, “Guitar Hero” ruled the mid-2000s until “Rock Band” split the market — and soon after, both faded into irrelevance.

Yet, if regulators used AELP’s “Call of Duty” logic, perhaps they would have treated “Guitar Hero” like an untouchable monopoly, freezing the industry in place while gamers missed out on the next wave of competition.

Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft have spent decades battling to build their own “killer apps.” Players bought Xboxes for “Halo,” PlayStations for “Uncharted,” and Nintendo consoles for “Zelda.” If Microsoft ever made “Call of Duty” exclusive, the proper response from Sony wouldn’t be to run to regulators, it would be to make something better. That is how markets are supposed to work.

Instead, AELP and the far left’s vision appears to be to turn antitrust into a permanent chokepoint for the entire economy, swapping innovation for bureaucratic control.

Unfortunately, the Microsoft-Activision case was just a warm-up for them. After celebrating victory with Epic, AELP continues to push crackdowns on everything from dynamic pricing to airline partnerships that help travelers redeem miles across carriers.

If AELP succeeds in locking its mindset into law, it won’t just be gamers who lose — it will be every industry that depends on competition and creativity to thrive.

Gamers don’t need Washington lawyers and think tank activists deciding what they can play, and neither does any other sector caught in AELP’s crosshairs. What the market needs is the freedom to build, compete, and win without having to beg permission from the same professional regulators who mistake every successful product for a monopoly.

If AELP gets its way, innovation won’t just stall in gaming — it will stall everywhere. That would be bad news for everyone.

The Trump administration should continue to stand its ground and fight AELP’s agenda tooth and nail. We’ll all be better off for it.

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James Skyles is a legal policy analyst and the principal of Skyles Law Group. He has written for some of the largest legal publications in the United States, including Law.com and Law360.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.