Leaders in the video game industry spent the better part of the last decade marketing radical gender ideology in a hobby predominantly practiced by children and teenagers. No gamer could escape transgender symbolism or out-of-place pride flags sprawled across his screen.
In recent months, however, gamers have had enough of the political propaganda. They’ve now adopted a so-called “non-buynary” movement, refusing to purchase games saturated in identity politics. Now, an unprecedented number of games are seeing poor sales and game studios are folding. The movement appears to be working.
The video game industry is finally experiencing its Bud Light moment.
Americans boycotted Bud Light in 2023 after the company hired transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney as a spokesperson. The boycott is still <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/aliciapark/2024/07/18/bud-light-boycott-effects-endure-brand-drops-to-third/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">affecting</a> the brand with Bud Light falling to third place in beer sales last summer. Throughout the past year, many gamers <a href="https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/06/20/the-video-game-industry-needs-a-bud-light-moment/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">speculated</a> that the industry would have a reckoning similar to Bud Light when a majority of gamers put their foot down. 
In what became one of the largest flops in the history of gaming, Sony reportedly <a href="https://www.geeksandgamers.com/new-concord-details-reveal-a-higher-budget-and-troubled-development/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">spent</a> $400 million to develop the shooting game “Concord.” Sony was banking on the new game to become a key new franchise, propelling the PlayStation brand into the future. Rather than focus on fun gameplay, “Concord” <a href="https://thatparkplace.com/playstation-studios-new-5v5-multiplayer-shooter-concord-gets-raked-over-the-coals-for-pushing-pronoun-nonsense-and-dei-character-designs/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">forced</a> preferred pronouns and “DEI character designs” onto players. The new “DEI character designs” refer to modern game studios creating female characters who look masculine or overweight while also having LGBTQ identities.
After Sony announced “Concord,” <a href="https://thatparkplace.com/concord-lead-character-designer-believes-whites-must-acknowledge-their-privileged-position-and-then-actively-work-for-equality-also-claims-the-judicial-system-is-white-supremacy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">comments</a> from the game’s lead character designer were unearthed where he stated that “whites must acknowledge their privileged position, and then actively work for equality.” He added that “complicity allows systemic racism to persist.” In another comment, he stated that the “entire penal/judicial system is white supremacy.” His ideology obviously leaked into the game.
“Concord” officially launched in August 2024 to a negative reception. The game <a href="https://steamdb.info/app/2443720/charts/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">failed</a> to reach even 700 concurrent players online, becoming a massive disaster. Sony <a href="https://www.gamesradar.com/games/fps/its-official-concord-servers-are-now-offline-just-2-weeks-after-one-of-the-worst-launches-of-2024/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shut down</a> the servers after two weeks and refunded players who bought the game. Then, in October, Sony <a href="https://www.geekwire.com/2024/sony-shutting-down-seattle-area-game-developer-firewalk-studios/#:~:text=This%20is%20widely%20seen%20as,during%20the%20COVID%2D19%20lockdown." target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> the closure of “Concord’s” development company, Firewalk Studios.
Gamers simply refused to give their money to a studio that made a blatantly woke game. That’s not the only noteworthy example from 2024.
“Dragon Age” is a massive game franchise with millions of fans who waited a decade for another sequel. BioWare, however, failed to give fans what they wanted with the release of “Dragon Age: The Veilguard” in October. Much like “Concord,” the new “Dragon Age” game forced players into accepting radical gender ideology.
One of the main characters in “Dragon Age: The Veilguard” <a href="https://x.com/stillgray/status/1852700288039194637?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1852700288039194637%7Ctwgr%5E376b55af526beb0196649b50aaab7f3df0de99b3%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.geeksandgamers.com%2Fdragon-age-the-veilguard-has-a-weaker-than-expected-opening-weekend%2F">identifies</a> as “non-binary” and it becomes a recurring plot point of the game. In one scene, a character <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7uoKLKbXxM">punishes</a> herself with pushups for misgendering the “non-binary” character. Gamers saw right through it and never truly bought into the game. The new “Dragon Age” only had <a href="https://gameworldobserver.com/2025/01/23/dragon-age-launch-sales-veilguard-vs-previous-games#:~:text=Dragon%20Age%3A%20Origins%20%E2%80%94%203.2%20million,to%20May%204%2C%202011)%3B">1.5 million players</a> within its first two months, 50% below expectations. The first game in the series sold 3.2 million copies in the same timeframe, with the second selling two million copies. BioWare then <a href="https://www.cbr.com/bioware-fires-dragon-age-the-veilguard-writers/">fired</a> all staff on the game’s writing team in January.
Another major release that floundered for similar reasons is “Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.” Rocksteady Studios released the game in February 2024. “Suicide Squad” served as a sequel to the popular “Batman: Arkham” games but failed to live up to the hype.
The game has villain Harley Quinn <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1apjlvmoNTw">lecture</a> Batman for his brand of justice before outright killing the popular masked vigilante. Rocksteady Studios also used the game to <a href="https://boundingintocomics.com/video-games/rocksteady-confirms-next-suicide-squad-kill-the-justice-league-dlc-character-mrs-freeze-is-a-lesbian/">gender swap</a> Mr. Freeze into a character named “Mrs. Freeze” who is a lesbian. In the game, Mrs. Freeze has an <a href="https://x.com/Grummz/status/1816626214620266859?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1816629746081628529%7Ctwgr%5E2b1d45700113f6f5a01344f946e04201d378928f%7Ctwcon%5Es3_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fthatparkplace.com%2Fsuicide-squad-kill-the-justice-leagues-lesbian-mrs-freeze-season-2-update-bombs-with-players-game-has-lost-95-of-its-players-since-february%2F">outfit</a> that includes the pride flag draped across her shoulder.
Not many gamers were impressed with “Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League’s” direction. Forbes <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2024/05/09/wb-blames-suicide-squad-kill-the-justice-league-for-quarterly-miss/?sh=5d95b2a7ba87">reported</a> that “while we do not know sales figures, they appear dismal, and reports are that they were lower than even the worst-case scenario expectations for release.” Rocksteady Studios had <a href="https://www.gamesindustry.biz/rocksteady-cut-further-jobs-at-the-end-of-2024" target="_blank" rel="noopener">multiple rounds</a> of layoffs last year after the game’s launch.
Game studios spent too many years preaching inclusivity and gender ideology to gamers and eventually lost the good will they earned in prior decades. People play games to briefly escape their problems in the real world – not to be forced into accepting a sinister ideology. The situation is even worse when these games are marketed to vulnerable children who are easily influenced.
For the video game industry to recover from its self-inflicted slump, studios must embrace the vision of pure enjoyable escapism of years past. Until that day arrives, gamers will undoubtedly continue to identify as “non-buynary.”
* * *
Casey Ryan is a writer and investigative reporter at Parents Defending Education.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Sony Cutting 900 Jobs In Its PlayStation Unit

Sony’s $400 Million Misfire: Why The Video Game Industry Is Facing A Bud Light Moment

Blizzard Entertainment

Bud Light

Corporations

Entertainment

LGBTQ

Opinion

Video Games

Woke Culture

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/sylvester-stallone">Sylvester Stallone</a> is fresh off a marriage reconciliation and is reflecting on how he handled the balance of career and family responsibilities in the past.
The 76-year-old “Rocky” <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/celebrities">star</a> opened up to Sunday Times about the current state of his familial relationships during a recent <a href="https://archive.ph/swYku">interview</a>. He and his wife of 25 years, Jennifer Flavin, announced their split in August but called it off a month later.
&#8220;Let&#8217;s just say that it was a very tumultuous time,&#8221; Stallone told the publication. &#8220;There was a reawakening of what was more valuable than anything, which is my love for my family. It takes precedence over my work, and that was a hard lesson to learn.&#8221;
The <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/parents">father</a> of five mentioned how his focus on his career affected his children and their relationship even now. Stallone shares two sons with his previous wife and three daughters with Flavin.
&#8220;I didn&#8217;t pay enough attention when they were growing up,&#8221; the Golden Globe award winner admitted. &#8220;I was so career-oriented, and now I go, &#8216;OK, I don&#8217;t have that much runway up ahead, and I want to start asking them about their lives.'&#8221;
While he regrets the mistakes he made in the past, Stallone told The Times he&#8217;s working on those relationships now, especially the ties with his daughters.
&#8220;I ask them about their day, and they started at first a little monosyllabic,&#8221; he continued.&#8221;Then I heard one say, &#8216;I was just thinking about you.&#8217; Oh, my God. I&#8217;ve never heard that before in my life. When a daughter knows you care, she&#8217;s there forever.&#8221;
Elsewhere in the interview, the action star shared some advice for up-and-comers, urging them to prioritize physical safety.
Stallone said that the action film genre has &#8220;changed radically when it became possible to Velcro your muscles on,&#8221; and that current actors should use these changes to their advantage.
&#8220;Don&#8217;t do your own stunts, that&#8217;s the moral of that,” he advised. “But the special effects became more important than the person. Life is a matter of managing your ass-whipping,&#8221; he said. &#8220;That&#8217;s why I&#8217;ve always been a fan of defeated fighters. The undefeated boxer? I&#8217;m not interested.&#8221;
The actor also said he never expected Rocky and Rambo to be associated with politics. 
“I didn’t even know what a Republican or a Democrat was until I was 30 years old. I really didn’t until I went to Hollywood,” he explained. “I didn’t know wrapping myself in a flag in Rocky would throw down the gauntlet.”

Paramount+ UK Launch – Arrivals

‘I Didn’t Pay Enough Attention’: Sylvester Stallone Reflects On Prioritizing Career Over Fatherhood

Sylvester Stallone Reflects On Prioritizing Career Over Fatherhood

Celebrities

Parenting

Sylvester Stallone

U.S.

British GQ has officially joined the ranks of the NBA and Blizzard Entertainment in publicly acting out of fear of &#8220;offending&#8221; the human rights-violating Chinese government.
One of the most significant stories of 2019 has been influential western entities caving to China amid the ongoing pro-Democracy protests in Hong Kong against the authoritarian communist regime. The NBA, following the leads of commissioner Adam Silver and Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James, infamously cowered to China after one team executive dared to express support for the pro-Democracy protesters on social media. The backlash was swift and severe, as it was for gaming company Blizzard after it punished a popular professional player for likewise showing support for the pro-freedom demonstrators.
Now, as reported by <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/markdistefano/gq-worst-dressed-removal">BuzzFeed News</a>, British GQ has gotten in on the caving to China action, quietly pulling two international leaders from their &#8220;World&#8217;s Top 10 Worst Dressers&#8221; list — leaving the list conspicuously two names short — out of what a spokesperson later admitted was fear of causing &#8220;unintended offense.&#8221;
&#8220;During the course of this week, other news websites, <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-7757029/Boris-Johnsons-adviser-Dominic-Cummings-crowned-worlds-WORST-dressed-man-GQ.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">like the Mail Online</a>, picked up on the list, spreading the word about whom British GQ thought were the world’s 10 worst dressers,&#8221; BuzzFeed reports. &#8220;But on GQ’s own website, something was different. The &#8216;top 10&#8217; list had become a &#8216;top 8&#8217;. Missing were two individuals: China’s president Xi Jinping and king of Thailand Maha Vajiralongkorn.&#8221;
&#8220;It is not Hong Kong&#8217;s courageous freedom fighters that Xi Jinping should have a problem with. It&#8217;s his tailor,&#8221; the entry for the Chinese president pulled from the digital version of the article read. &#8220;Xi gets totalitarian style cues from his hero, the mass murderer Chairman Mao, who enforced a dour and plain dress code for the Communist Party.&#8221;
The likewise deleted critique of Vajiralongkorn read: &#8220;How many others living deities do you know with a penchant for really tight crop tops, hipster jeans and fake tattoos? The answer is none. And that&#8217;s because no other exist.&#8221;
While it pulled the entries for those two international figures, British GQ chose to leave on its list U.S. President Donald Trump, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson&#8217;s chief adviser Dominic Cummings, among others.
So what motivated the glaring removal of the two world leaders? A spokesperson at Condé Nast, the mass media company that owns GQ, told BuzzFeed that management ordered the two leaders pulled from the unflattering list out of fear of causing &#8220;unintended offense.&#8221;
Sources at GQ&#8217;s parent company told BuzzFeed that if the piece had been a &#8220;hard-hitting piece of journalism,&#8221; management would have stood by the inclusion of critical references to the two leaders. But since the worst dressed list was intended to be a &#8220;light-hearted list meant for a UK audience,&#8221; management ordered the two figures to be digitally disappeared, maintaining that the potential fallout simply wasn&#8217;t worth it.
With local editions of some of its magazines in both China and Thailand, Condé Nast decided that it was wiser to just delete the entries than to open up the possibility that the unenviable list would stir up unnecessary problems globally.
&#8220;We are conscious that digitally published stories travel globally and can gain traction where they lack the necessary context and can cause unintended offense,&#8221; a spokesperson for the media company told BuzzFeed, noting that the full story still remains in the printed edition of the magazine.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/lebrons-lakers-lose-amid-pro-hong-protests-china-state-tv-blackout">LeBron’s Opening Game Hit With Protests; China State TV Blacks Out NBA</a>

Donald Trump Xi Jinping

British GQ Pulls Chinese President From ‘Worst Dressed’ List For Fear Of Causing ‘Offense,’ Leaves Trump, Other Prominent Figures

China

Donald Trump

LeBron James

Xi Jinping

You can say this for the Chinese government: they may be a gang of murderous, oppressive, lying thugs, but they’ve done American culture a big favor. They’ve exposed our sanctimonious cultural classes for the phonies they are.
Let’s start with Blizzard Entertainment, the video game company that produced Diablo. Diablo was a great game, an immersive story of a knight facing the supernatural powers of darkness. I was so amazed by its beauty and realism that I played it obsessively, killing off hordes of demons until I broke my computer mouse.
The story was wonderful — but the storytellers were hollow men, frauds who had the skill to create cartoon heroes while siding with the real demons, the Chinese. The company suspended professional gamer Chung Ng Wai from competition for a year after he called for Hong Kong’s liberation in a post-game interview. After being shamed by the fans, they cut his punishment to six months — a move so cynical and empty of moral understanding it made the situation even worse.
Because: Punish him for what? For standing up for the heroes of the Hong Kong streets who are risking all in protests against the monsters of Beijing?
And make no mistake about it: the Chinese are a government of monsters. There are no shades of gray here. Their Maoist forefathers slaughtered eight New York Cities worth of individuals in the name of their foul philosophy. As late as 2015, they were tying women down to sterilize them and forcibly abort their children. They disappear dissenters and then harvest their organs for transplant — I know, it sounds like one of those &#8217;80s medical thrillers, but it’s true. They’ve got religious minorities in “re-education camps,” a phrase that makes my gorge rise even when I just write it down.
So Blizzard tells a story about a hero fighting demons, then punishes a hero for fighting demons. And for what? For their dreams of a vast Chinese marketplace. For money.
Hollow men. Straw men. What a bunch of phonies.
And how about the NBA? Apologizing for a tweet supporting the Hong Kong freedom fighters. Sending their top athletes out to kowtow to the Chinese tyrants. Tossing out fans who brought pro-freedom signs and t-shirts to games. What about the NFL, who crawled to their Chinese overlords in 2004 after an image of the protesters in Tienanmen Square accidentally found its way into a celebration of liberty in the Super Bowl half-time show?
They tell stories too, don’t they? Stories about the evil American police. Stories about how courageous they are to kneel during the National Anthem, to disrespect the flag of the United States — a protest without consequence, without danger, because they live in the United States where they’re free. And yet for a few dollars more, they bend the knee to real-life present day slave masters.
Hollow men. Phonies.
And what about the sportscasters at ESPN, who couldn’t keep their fat, stupid mouths shut about how nasty George W. Bush was? Who tried to make heroes out of the ballplayers disrespecting our flag. But now, when it comes time to speak up for real heroes fighting real bad guys, they go silent at the orders of their parent company Disney.
And yeah, what about Disney? With all their woke cartoon stories preaching to us about diversity and tolerance and “strong” girls. The people who bring you those messages are protecting their Chinese market by silencing protests against the oppressors of minorities.
Stinkers. Fakes. Phonies. Hollow men.
Listen, I’ve been a professional novelist all my adult life, and I’ll be the first to admit: no storyteller can wholly live up to the courage of his own heroes. Having flaws, making mistakes, failing to do the right thing — these are traits shared by one hundred percent of human beings. And yet our small-minded, bigoted, “woke” culture punishes people for all those things.
What then shall we do to these truly hollow men, who aren’t making mistakes, who aren’t acting in error, but are actually living out their money-first philosophy, who are consciously and purposefully betraying the good for a Yuan?
They are talented people, no doubt; gifted people. Some of the stories they tell are great. Their athletic feats are amazing.
But from now on, when they speak to us of politics and culture — when they step out of their professional zone and preach to us about how to live and who to vote for — we have to remember this:
They are hollow men. Straw men. A bunch of phonies.

“I Love China” sign in front of NBA flagship store

KLAVAN: What A Bunch Of Phonies

Adam Silver

ESPN

Free Speech

Hong Kong

The following is satirical.
Video game company Blizzard Entertainment is trying to win back fan support after it came under fire for banning a gamer who cheered on the Hong Kong freedom fighters.
The company released a statement saying, yes, it was true, it had abandoned every principle of decency and political morality for profit, and yes it had betrayed the cause of liberty in order to bury its fat corporate face in piles of Yuan like a giant hog looking for truffles, and yes, no gamer with even a moderately active conscience would ever consider spending money on one of its products ever again — but never mind all that, they’ll be bringing out a new version of Diablo. So hooray
Diablo IV: This Time We Suck will be released in time for Christmas in order to squeeze every single penny out of any gamer so mired in moral slime he would think of buying it.
The new game follows the journey of the hero Crap-Heart who fights for the forces of good unless there’s money to be made, then screw it.
Crap-Heart’s enemy is the evil demon Diablo, who has unleashed an unholy conspiracy to give people in Hong Kong human rights even though their wonderful Chinese overlords treat them so kindly it’s impossible to imagine why they would ever need human rights.
In the final battle, Crap-heart and Diablo meet in the skies above the Great Wall and are about to come to blows when Diablo offers Crap-Heart a couple of bucks and the hero goes home, figuring, what’s the use of fighting evil if it’s just going to offend people and anyway, look how much money I made.
Blizzard says it will also team up with the NBA and NFL to create the new sports franchise Kowtow Like a B*tch, in which players kneel on one knee during the American national anthem to demonstrate their political courage in the face of absolutely no consequences and then kneel on both knees to apologize to the tyrants of Beijing, lest they lose even a single paycheck.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/klavan-economics-should-never-come-before-freedom">KLAVAN: Economics Should Never Come Before Freedom</a>

Blizzard