Has BioWare's policy of diversity started to become mainstream?

I think its just that the developers have had enough of the fair weather fans telling them what they can or cannot have in their games, but then will instantly turn on them when something doesn't work. So now they are taking ownership of their games and if people don't like it tough.

I remember a little over a year ago there was a lot of angst about whether Sara or Scott Ryder was shown first/most in trailers. Now Anthem is coming out and as far as I can tell they've only shown the female protagonist... and NO ONE IS FREAKING OUT.

You would know.

Accusing a game of being "preachy" or "screechy" is such vague criticism as to be completely meaningless. All stories have morals, the purpose of stories has always been to "preach". Yet I've never seen you levy this criticism against any game that deliberately excludes minorities, and there's a lot more of those.

Your insistence, time and time again, that the monolithic hive mind of "the left" is "pushing an agenda" (while "the right" is doing what, exactly?), just proves that there is no way to have diverse representation or tell minority stories through games (or any media, really) that you would accept or praise. No one will ever be able to create a diverse game in a way that satisfies you, you will always find a reason to complain.

You claim that EA and Disney are using accusations of bigotry to dismiss legitimate complaints about the quality of their products, but even if those products are bad, so fucking what? Most media is bad, yet you insist on holding a tiny fraction of it (the fraction that makes even the slightest effort to be diverse/representative of minorities) up to a higher standard, while allowing the rest of it to be terrible.

Your own mention of the "Star Wars backlash" is a prime example. For anyone who actually pays attention, it's clear that Star Wars has a legacy of being bad, or at least controversial. Return of the Jedi is considered mediocre at best, the prequels are widely despised. Force Awakens attracted a lot of criticism. And yet, nobody harassed the people involved in making these movies (except Jake Lloyd, who was bullied so badly that he retired from acting completely). Neither Natalie Portman nor Daisy Ridley have been driven away from social media for their involvement in the franchise, and their roles are much larger. Rian Johnson is the writer and director of Last Jedi, responsible for nearly every single creative decision made in the entire process of the film's production. Is he being harassed? No.

For some reason, the Star Wars "fandom" has decided that the person who deserves to bear the brunt of its ire is Kelly Marie Tran, a young actor getting her first big break, who has little to no say in the choices made regarding her own character, let alone the creative direction of the entire film or the series as a whole.

Wonder how that happened. 

First thing, I never bought a Battlefield game before, and I'm not gonna start with this one. I have no stake in this at all.

Secondly, whether the games were accurate or not, if immersion to experience what WW2 was like is your goal, having a crippled woman on the front lines can be an immersion breaker, considering no one that was missing a hand would be in the front lines, nor were women in the front lines. And this is particularly important if for other aspects of the game, like the vanity items cannot contain anything that was not used in WW2...

Thirdly, there is a clear difference between being inclusive and giving special treatment. One is, well, inclusive, and the other is pampering to keep SJWs happy. So ask yourself. What does this woman with a missing hand add to the game? Why is it of importance to the game? If it does not add anything, meaning you could replace that same character with a man, a clown, a bear or an alien, the reason for including it is clearly a political push, forcing specific views on the audience. Especially when you claim that things need to be believable and have to fit the era. So, which side are you on?

Lastly, never address your fans with scorn. It WILL come back to bite you. Or, it will keep others away.

As for BioWare... I'm not sure how things went... But the way things went with the studio that is now closed, I suspect they hired people for diversity rather than based on their skill. And ultimately, this is the only outcome that one can expect. People should be hired because of their skill, despite their own personal appearance or beliefs. People should not be hired based on their appearance or beliefs to show you're politically correct by having X amount of A, B C and D kind of people in your team. 

Here's what SJWism and "reaching out to a broader audience" has gotten popular game franchises. Based Romanian, speak on em'

I’m going to quote Varric: “personally I’m tired of Mages and Templars.”

I don’t think DICE is shoving women down our throats.

Tell that to the SOE, who during World War 2 (the period in which Battlefield V is set), regularly employed both women and people with disabilities, as well as people of colour, known homosexuals, people with criminal records, communists and anti-British nationalists. In fact they prioritised people with non-British backgrounds, because they wanted agents who could speak multiple languages.

SOE agents were not frontline infantry, but they were expected to engage in combat (and even organise resistance groups among the local populace), and were trained for that possibility. There's any number of reasons why a female SOE agent might be required to cross an active war zone in order to do her job. Just because the trailer shows her in active combat doesn't mean she is a "soldier on the front lines".

So like I said, people who care so much should wait and learn the context for her presence, instead of bleating about "historical accuracy", when they clearly haven't studied any fucking history.

Nor in the cavalry. Come to think of it - a cavalryman would have been just as silly.