Unscripted Dragon Age Trailer (funny)

That would have bought 'Beware' quite a lot of good will had they had the chutzpah to make fun at themselves

Who are the fans? What’s with YouTubers assuming that everyone agrees with them?

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Almost every single joke is about skin color, ethnicity, or gender. This person sure does give off the vibe of someone that moans about identity politics while talking about nothing else. So brave, so real. *eyeroll*

The dragon scream was worth it!

Otherwise too easy because the trailer already looks like a parody. So low effort required.

Nobody would be talking about all this DEI & woke crap if it wasn't a thing constantly crammed down everyone's throat; in movies, tv shows, video games, comic books, etc. Which is what makes this clip amusing, because it satirizes a very real thing.  

But hey, if you like that sort of thing then enjoy!

I hate the use of the term “woke,” because it’s tossed around by alt-right shitheads and incels complaining about the presence of any person of colour or LGBTQ folks. They can’t even define what “woke” means when called upon to do so.

That said, I also know that corporations cynically use diversity as a crutch to avoid or deflect criticism; as the running joke goes, Activision Blizzard rolls out a new gay Overwatch character every time it comes one of the devs was caught doing human trafficking or some shit.

To me, the trailer is funny because it reminds me of two corporate heads talking about how they have to fill out a diversity checklist for the new Dragon Age game.

See folks, it doesn’t matter we spent 10 years putting out two shitty games and laying off a bunch of devs because, umm … the elves are Asian now! Oh, and we have a lady warrior of questionable gender identity! Holy fuck, we’re progressive!

Have you considered that the reason there's so much of that stuff is because many enjoy it? That you may just not be the target audience for some things? Like, the way some people complain about this stuff, it's like they think no one could possibly want it and there must be some sinister conspiracy to "cram it down everyone's throat."

The devs being laid off has far less to do with the current quality of Bioware's games and far more to do with the current state of the industry. Even companies making well-received games are having to lay people off, or having their funding cut off by their publishers due to failing to recoup costs. Not that that makes it okay, and failing to pay severance is especially shitty on Bioware’s end. I really don't understand the comparison to Activision, given these companions have been in development for years and at no point, ever, need to justify not being white or straight or not a man. The Blizzard comparison would be like if Bellara or Davrin had been added as a day one DLC character, with all the interactivity of Sebastian within the main game.

I also really haven't seen Bioware use diversity to try and bludgeon criticism, they've mentioned it in PR statements and that's it. But I've certainly seen bigoted, populist rhetoric coming from so-called 'fans' of the games, often couched in comedic dog whistles much like the video posted here.

I'm not too bothered. At the core DA was written as "woke", it was women influencing the main religion and being seen as righteous whereas men were seen as lesser. I'm a little sad we're getting more dude focus with Solas being the tragic villain/hero instead of Flemeth but what can you do?
I draw the line at after school special quests and such. I hate that. It's a waste of my time, and shoehorning current issues just break mah immersion.
I romanced Dorian love him as a character just his whole dad quest, I didn't care for.
I liked Krem way more than the Bull, but again why do I care about what is their underpants exactly? Wasn't trying to get into them.
I'm expecting some level of cringe in DATV, that's fine. Hopefully no I'm slighty neurodivergeant non binary pansexual character that will try to explain how it's their whole quirky personality and the misunderstood plight of it all because there's only so much bullshit I can suffer.

I have no issues with how woke Dragon Age was before. They just did inclusivity and it was fine. Because these characters weren't only about their sexuality. Krem was borderline in how they did it and the trans person in Andromeda was straight up cringe with how they felt like thst was the first thing they needed to tell you about. Also the asari pronouns thing was godawful. Dorian felt a lot like a school special on homosexuality to me too but it wasn't written for me and I did read how this helped some gay players face their family so that's great for them.

So I'm worried about a general trend in media AND at BioWare putting too much focus on explaining why everyone is special because of their sexuality or ethnicity. I couldn't care less. That doesn't make anybody special to me. It's what you do with your life that's interesting to me.

But in the past DA was fine, the trilogy was fine. So I hope they manage to strike a balance in their storytelling.

Shallow corporate tokenism is indeed a thing, but I don't think we have to look that hard for reasons for the Dragon Age games have always been 'woke'. There's a weird assumption that video game companies only put female protagonists, people of colour or disabled or LGBT+ characters and other groups that have historically been discriminated against in their games because someone forced them to. Like creative people in any medium, video game developers want to see themselves and their audience reflected in their work, and as both the dev pool and the audience have gotten broader so have the contents of the games.

Dorian's not gay because some executive somewhere decided DAI needed a gay character. He's gay because David Gaider wanted him that way. BioWare were smart enough to get out of his way (they didn't when he wanted Zevran to be gay a few years earlier) but the impetus to do that story came from the lead writer. Krem is trans because Patrick Weekes needed some kind of angle on the character to make him more interesting and that's the one they went with. The Dragon Age writer's pit has always been half women, their first lead writer was a gay man and the current one is a pansexual enby. The game design director is a trans woman. Why would they not want to see people like themselves in games? Why would they not also be inclinded to think that Black and Asian people or amputees and whatever other groups are represented by Veilguard will get a kick out of seeing people like them in the game? I've already seen one Black cosplayer working on a Davrin outfit.

I'm in my mid-forties, I've been playing games since I was six. I'm old enough to remember when every game I played seemed to assume I was a man (or a boy) and a straight white one at that. Things are so much better now. And it's not like any RPG with character creation is stopping anyone from playing a heterosexual white man if that's what they want to do!

In a few months I am going to boot up Veilguard, make the fattest purple-haired Qunari Rook I can and go romance Harding . So mark me down as cheerfully 'woke', I guess, or whatever the next buzzword is.