Go woke, go broke

[Klimax]

Its content is what distinguishes it. Marketing isn't the only way for that content to become known. I've seen no marketing for this game whatsoever yet I was already aware of its existence and, thanks to this thread, I became aware of its content.

So how is it different from previous games of this genre? If it is not different, then who's overreacting to what or whom?

Some sanity to this discussion please!

I'm really curious to know where you're going to get ads like "50% more gayness!" Damn. That'd get my attention.

That's the best part. There is no such marketing. Well, outside of fringe forgotten indie games. (Ignoring weak brouhahas like Overwatch and weird out of context stuff by Bungie for Destiny)

 

[Pixel42]

So how is it different from previous games of this genre?

Did you miss tyr_13's post? Here it is again:

The 'uber-woke' Baldur's Gate III has sold more than 2.5 million units on PC, has 700,000 concurrent players at peak times, and it hasn't even released on consoles yet, though it is the current champ for Playstation pre-orders.

The regressive right has had a lot to say about the game. They hated the romancing of a druid shapechanged into a bear, thinking that it was promoting bear ******* instead of being damn funny as was intended. They hate that bisexual male romance options will hit on your male character (they call it 'immersion breaking'). They hate that the female characters aren't all super over the top exaggerations of game beauties (even though there are plenty of those too) when the ones that they're complaining about are both scared warriors, one of which is part demon and machine and the other is basically an alien from the stars. They REALLY truly hate that you can make your character basically anywhere from the LBGTQ community. Making a lesbian they might be able to accept, but picking your pronouns so you can be an NB? Being able to be transgender! Heavens forefend!
Anyway, it looks like it's going to be massively popular and make a ton of money. That broke woke bear ****** money.

That's certainly a lot more orientation options than in any previous game I've bought.

 

[theprestige]

I really wish the regressive right had been more vocal about the gameplay and setting. I didn't need to spend AAA-tier money just to be able to give my character's handsome uncut lady-dick a crown of pink pubic hair. While this is certainly a thing you can do in BG3, the feature is not accompanied by AAA-tier gameplay, in my opinion. So you're mostly paying for AAA graphics. Graphic graphics.

---

Anyway, I come here today not to praise BG3, but to bury Target.

AP reports that Target reports a quarterly sales drop for the first time in 6 years. Reasons cited for the drop are inflation, the student loan moratorium expiring, and backlash from the brand's Pride Month efforts.

More AP reporting about Target's struggles with Pride Month backlash.

---

ETA: This also seems like a good moment to re-iterate my thesis, that "go woke, go broke" isn't so much about pissing off the extremists who get pissed off about everything anyway. It's more about alienating the demographic that's supposed to be buying your stuff.

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

Virginia GOP Official Displays 16 Foot Penis Sign at Youth Baseball Game to Protest Woke



https://www.meidastouch.com/news/vi...s-sign-at-youth-baseball-game-to-protest-woke

You know, the Private Eye had a character in their funnies section who kept getting arrested by the peelers over wearing a costume that he said represented "the wagging finger of the nanny state" and they said represented an erect penis to public events.

I didn't think it'd be used for inspiration.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

I really wish the regressive right had been more vocal about the gameplay and setting. I didn't need to spend AAA-tier money just to be able to give my character's handsome uncut lady-dick a crown of pink pubic hair. While this is certainly a thing you can do in BG3, the feature is not accompanied by AAA-tier gameplay, in my opinion. So you're mostly paying for AAA graphics. Graphic graphics.

---

Anyway, I come here today not to praise BG3, but to bury Target.

AP reports that Target reports a quarterly sales drop for the first time in 6 years. Reasons cited for the drop are inflation, the student loan moratorium expiring, and backlash from the brand's Pride Month efforts.

More AP reporting about Target's struggles with Pride Month backlash.

---

ETA: This also seems like a good moment to re-iterate my thesis, that "go woke, go broke" isn't so much about pissing off the extremists who get pissed off about everything anyway. It's more about alienating the demographic that's supposed to be buying your stuff.

hard to single out how much of this is "pride" backlash considering the broader economic conditions that are similarly impacting other retailers.

CEO Brian Cornell said higher high prices for food and household essentials are taking a bigger chunk out of the paychecks of customers, who have also pulled back on buying some goods in favor of travel or spending time out of the house in other ways.

“Guests are out at concerts,” Cornell told reporters on a media call Tuesday. “They’re going to movies. They’ve seen ‘Barbie.’ They’re enjoying those experiential moments, and they’re shopping very carefully for discretionary goods.”

Other retailers are seeing the same thing.

Home Depot, the nation’s largest home improvement retailer, said Tuesday that sales continued to decline after surging in recent years. Sales of big-ticket items, those that may require financing, were particularly hard hit.

The article says other earnings reports are expected to be published soon, so whether or not this is a Target thing vs a general retailer thing will probably be easier to discern soon.

The article claims that Target is especially vulnerable to tightening household budgets:

Target is more vulnerable than other big box discounters like Walmart. More than 50% of Target’s annual sales come from discretionary items like toys, fashion and electronic gadgets, according to the company’s latest annual financial report.

Assuming there's actually some significant drop due to the whole anti-gay freakout, you have wonder exactly what is alienating Target shoppers. Like the whole Bud-Light fiasco, Target's very public backing down in the face of extreme right wing messaging seems more likely to irritate normal people with vaguely liberal values, rather than ascribing any drop in sales to customers being anti-gay.

I would also suspect that the very public campaign of right wingers causing a huge scene within target would probably influence people more than their message. most people don't like encountering these MAGA freaks during their demonstrations, which were noxious at best and thinly veiled threats of stochastic violence at worst (and trying to deal with this very heavily implied threat of violence made Target's response more reasonable, even if not particularly courageous).

The tactics of the fascist right to go in person to Target stores and cause a huge scene seems like a tacit admission that the general "go woke, go broke" theory rarely works and that more extreme, hands-on approaches were necessary for this lunatic fringe to have a practical impact.

 

[theprestige]

hard to single out how much of this is "pride" backlash considering the broader economic conditions that are similarly impacting other retailers.

I tend to agree, but clearly Target thought it was worth reporting, and so did the AP.

The article says other earnings reports are expected to be published soon, so whether or not this is a Target thing vs a general retailer thing will probably be easier to discern soon.

The article claims that Target is especially vulnerable to tightening household budgets:



Assuming there's actually some significant drop due to the whole anti-gay freakout, you have wonder exactly what is alienating Target shoppers. Like the whole Bud-Light fiasco, Target's very public backing down in the face of extreme right wing messaging seems more likely to irritate normal people with vaguely liberal values, rather than ascribing any drop in sales to customers being anti-gay.

I would also suspect that the very public campaign of right wingers causing a huge scene within target would probably influence people more than their message. most people don't like encountering these MAGA freaks during their demonstrations, which were noxious at best and thinly veiled threats of stochastic violence at worst (and trying to deal with this very heavily implied threat of violence made Target's response more reasonable, even if not particularly courageous).

The tactics of the fascist right to go in person to Target stores and cause a huge scene seems like a tacit admission that the general "go woke, go broke" theory rarely works and that more extreme, hands-on approaches were necessary for this lunatic fringe to have a practical impact.

LOL. How many times have you shopped at target this year, before, during or after Pride Month?

How many right-wing protestors have you ever encountered while shopping at Target?

 

[TurkeysGhost]

I tend to agree, but clearly Target thought it was worth reporting, and so did the AP.




LOL. How many times have you shopped at target this year, before, during or after Pride Month?

How many right-wing protestors have you ever encountered while shopping at Target?

Infrequently. Usually only buy in store when I'm in too much of a rush to wait for mail order to be delivered. I happened to be in a Target just this weekend to replace a cell phone that was destroyed by water damage, but it had been months since I had last shopped at Target.

I have not specifically run into CHUDs at target, but I have encountered them doing dumb little demonstrations in public. They aren't exactly subtle but seem to get great satisfaction out of causing a scene.

But I'll concede that worrying about encountering one of these freaks probably wouldn't change my shopping habits, nor can I recall it ever having done so.

Targets concerns about right wing freaks seemed to be mostly rooted in avoiding confrontation between their staff (who would be tasked with ejecting these freaks) and potentially dangerous weirdos, less so about potential conflicts with other customers.

 

[gnome]

I really wish the regressive right had been more vocal about the gameplay and setting. I didn't need to spend AAA-tier money just to be able to give my character's handsome uncut lady-dick a crown of pink pubic hair. While this is certainly a thing you can do in BG3, the feature is not accompanied by AAA-tier gameplay, in my opinion. So you're mostly paying for AAA graphics. Graphic graphics.

Might it be accurate to suppose that these portions that have caught your attention do not represent massive development effort? Lacking satisfying gameplay is a legitimate complaint, but I'm not sure that the extra customization options can be considered something that drained that potential.

I am legitimately curious how easy it is to ignore these options if one isn't interested.

 

[theprestige]

Might it be accurate to suppose that these portions that have caught your attention do not represent massive development effort? Lacking satisfying gameplay is a legitimate complaint, but I'm not sure that the extra customization options can be considered something that drained that potential.

I'm not saying it drained that potential. Or even that it's an example of GW/GB. I'm just saying it's not enough of a feature to counterbalance the lack of what I'm actually paying AAA prices for, in a AAA game.

I am legitimately curious how easy it is to ignore these options if one isn't interested.

Trivially easy. But this isn't a question of "if you don't like it, just ignore it." It's a question of absurdly detailed and graphic character sexual design options not really being enough of a feature to justify buying a AAA game. You don't need to drop $60+ just to feel included in a game you're probably not going to play anyway.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

I haven't gotten the impression that BG3 is game intended for a general audience. Baldur's Gate is very much targeted specifically at a table top RPG crowd. Clunky battle mechanics are because it's hewing very close to the experience of playing D&D, with very prescribed rules about movement or lines of sight and arbitrary dice rolls deciding all sorts of things, for example. From what I understand from my D&D playing friends, the battles themselves are not really the most interesting part of playing either TTRPGs or a game like Baldur's Gate and if you go into it expecting a bash and slash RPG type game you'll be sorely disappointed. Exploration of the wider world and the story are much more the focus.

From what I can tell from the social media feed of uber-nerds online, BG3 is a smash success. More than a few people have claimed they're using vacation time to miss work in order to plow hours into this thing and I haven't seen anything but approval from these people. It's not really a kind of game that interests me, but I'm have some acquittances in this niche and they all seem to love it.

I've also seen people laughing at the complaints about combat, and pointing out that this game is probably one of the few versions of D&D where the dungeon master isn't fudging the dice rolls.

Edit: Allowing players to have extremely granular control over their character's appearance doesn't strike me as "woke", but more the logical conclusion of a type of gaming that is heavily character and story focused. How your character interacts with other characters or NPCs is a huge part of TTRPGs and derivative video games, including romantic and sexual affairs.

 

[Cat Not Included]

So how is it different from previous games of this genre? If it is not different, then who's overreacting to what or whom?

Some sanity to this discussion please!

If there was any sanity to this discussion, we wouldn't be having this discussion at all. Has there ever been a single example here that actually pertains to a company being "woke" to any real degree and not just some random silliness like "it lets you use whatever pronouns you want" or "its a got a black/female/gay lead"?

 

[TurkeysGhost]

If there was any sanity to this discussion, we wouldn't be having this discussion at all. Has there ever been a single example here that actually pertains to a company being "woke" to any real degree and not just some random silliness like "it lets you use whatever pronouns you want" or "its a got a black/female/gay lead"?

That's the whole point of the modern conservative movement, to relitigate all these boilerplate liberal (small L) values that were supposedly settled in recent history.

A big draw for the MAGA movement is that they don't have to pretend not to be racist or sexist or homophobic anymore. Finally they have politicians explicitly saying (rather than dogwhistling) all the reactionary things that they all have believed but knew they couldn't publicly express without condemnation. They've been given official permission to be bigots and it's quite the triumph for them.

 

[tyr_13]

I'm not saying it drained that potential. Or even that it's an example of GW/GB. I'm just saying it's not enough of a feature to counterbalance the lack of what I'm actually paying AAA prices for, in a AAA game.


Trivially easy. But this isn't a question of "if you don't like it, just ignore it." It's a question of absurdly detailed and graphic character sexual design options not really being enough of a feature to justify buying a AAA game. You don't need to drop $60+ just to feel included in a game you're probably not going to play anyway.

Wait, did you really not know it was a D&D rules based, story heavy, turned based RPG before you bought it? I mean, I'm aware it had next to no advertising, but if you require different gameplay from a AAA title, why even get it?

I wouldn't expect you to consider the inclusive options to be enough of a draw alone for a sale. I wouldn't expect that of most people. However, the absurd extent of the impactful choices in a story based game (deepening the roleplaying) is a AAA feature that is selling this role-playing game.

There are more than 170 hours of cutscenes, most of which you'll never see on a given play through. This is because of how details and choices change what happens. It's breath is part of the long time it took to make.

It's also a full game. DLC is great when it gives you more of a good thing, but more and more 'AAA' games have taken features and stories out of the main game in order to sell them as DLC later. BG3 has no micro-transactions. It has no requirement to always be in multiplayer. It in fact lacks many of the things that AAA games have been including like a checkmark on some list titled 'Requirements for AAA Games', regardless of if it makes a better game.

No, the 'woke' parts of the game aren't the only good thing about the game, but it sure as hell isn't hurting it. They didn't back down from an interesting world where pansexuality being the default has been canon for something like thirty years now.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Anyway, I come here today not to praise BG3, but to bury Target.

...Reasons cited for the drop are inflation, the student loan moratorium expiring, and backlash from the brand's Pride Month efforts.

But...

Other retailers are seeing the same thing...

higher interest rates are weighing on economic activities that are highly dependent on credit, like sales of homes, vehicles, furniture and electronics.

Target is more vulnerable than other big box discounters like Walmart. More than 50% of Target’s annual sales come from discretionary items like toys, fashion and electronic gadgets...

It pulled some items in particular regions and made other changes after encountering hostility from some customers who confronted workers and tipped over displays. Company executives said this week that it couldn’t tease out how much the negative reaction had on its business

I suspect the gay pride thing only had a minor effect. Some people would prefer it was more though, because the idea of a company going broke for being 'woke' appeals to them.

ETA: This also seems like a good moment to re-iterate my thesis, that "go woke, go broke" isn't so much about pissing off the extremists who get pissed off about everything anyway. It's more about alienating the demographic that's supposed to be buying your stuff.

I would call people who 'confront workers and tip over displays' extremists.

 

[Segnosaur]

Haven't been keeping up to date with this thread, but did a quick scan and didn't see it referenced.

The youtube channel TLDR did an analysis of whether "wokeness" was killing disney...

So they developed an index where they looked at several "woke" factors (race swapping, references to trans or gay issues, etc.), ranked the films according to their wokeness, and correlated that to their box office and audience ratings.

And they found: no correlation. There appears to be no effect on wokeness when it comes to earning a profit at the box office, or getting good audience reviews.

Yes Disney films are more "woke" on average than other studios, they chalk up their problems to things like bad marketing, a lack of creativity. (As a counterpoint, they point to films like the latest Fast and Furious and Mission Impossible movies not performing as expected, despite them not exactly being "woke" movies.)

ETA: for some reason my youtube tags aren't working. So I'm giving a link.

Youtube (TLDR channel)

 

[bruto]

Just a side note that on the radio today it was mentioned that Target is not alone in decline, as other stores such as Macys and some others I've forgotten are also down in similar amounts in a similar period. Wal Mart has done better, in part from their grocery sales, but even if there is a "woke" element in Target's decline, it's apparently not the main driver.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Go fash, lose cash

Broward says losses mount for tourism as more conventions stay away, citing fear for safety of diverse groups

The updated list now includes the National Sales Network Conference, whose founder and CEO emailed the county Monday: “Moving forward, we will not consider conducting any future conferences in the state of Florida given the Governor’s statement that slavery was good for Black people.”

And the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology wasn’t planning its annual convention until 2028, but backed out last week, citing in an email: “At the moment, we aren’t able to consider any Florida cities because of the political issues around women’s health and the added challenges with higher education there.”

It adds to the laundry list of groups including the Chicago-based American Specialty Toy Retailing Association, which had planned a 3,000-person conference in Fort Lauderdale in 2026, and cited the “unfriendly political environment in Florida.” The Washington, D.C.-based Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs, which was scheduled to come to Fort Lauderdale in January, diverted to New Orleans instead because of what’s perceived as anti-migrant policies. And the Atlanta-based aParent Miracles Foundation for this November is headed to Texas instead after the NAACP issued a travel advisory for Florida “in direct response to Governor Ron DeSantis’ attempts to erase Black history, and to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in Florida schools,” the organizer wrote the county’s tourism office.

https://www.aol.com/finance/broward-says-losses-mount-tourism-205500893.html?guccounter=1

 

[Trebuchet]

Just a side note that on the radio today it was mentioned that Target is not alone in decline, as other stores such as Macys and some others I've forgotten are also down in similar amounts in a similar period. Wal Mart has done better, in part from their grocery sales, but even if there is a "woke" element in Target's decline, it's apparently not the main driver.

"Brick and mortar" is being killed by Amazon and its ilk.

 

[lobosrul5]

"Brick and mortar" is being killed by Amazon and its ilk.

Almost every time I go to the nearest Target, not only is there a line at every regular checkout, theres a line to use the self-checkout. Its always very busy.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

"Brick and mortar" is being killed by Amazon and its ilk.

Target sells a lot of things that are more resilient to being taken over by online shopping, like groceries, clothing, and convenience items. The article posted earlier lays much of the blame on tightening household budgets. People aren't buying this stuff on Amazon, they aren't buying it at all.