Off the top of my head the following are probably the most egregious examples. I'm listing these in no order but including general entertainment IPs because there is huge crossover.
1. The Arkham series. We went from hugely successful games in the Arkham series to "Suicide Squad : Kill the Justice League"
2. Saints Row. We went from hugely successful games series popular with a wide variety of fans to a reboot that managed to alienate all of them.
3. Marvel. Up until Endgame this was a series of films which could do no wrong. The advent of the M-She-U led to flop after flop. We even had in The Falcon & The Winter Soldier an example of the same lecturing nonsense "Do better senator". The huge success of the two Sony led Spiderman films shows that the market is still there.
4. Star Wars. Another cross format IP here. This used to be the number one IP in entertainment. However we have had a string of nonsense which has alienated the fanbase and damaged the brand. Prime examples here are things like The Acolyte and Star Wars Outlaws.
5. Assassins Creed - used to be a regular hit property for Ubisoft but they managed to alienate the core audience. Shadows was set in Japan and when it was announced the fanbase was excited at the prospect. Rather than give them the chance to play as a Japanese assassin they insisted on shoehorning in a black dude who was never a samurai and a female love interest who is "non binary".
These are all IPs which have tanked. A huge reason for this as cited online for years now by the people who used to be huge fans is the injection of modern day activism into them all. With many of them you have comparable games that have been released at similar times without all this nonsense which have done much better. Compare for example how Ghost of Tsushima was received compared to Assassins Creed Shadows.
When the developers of game A are talking about how proud they are of the diversity in the game and the developers of game B are talking about how proud they are of their game it shows where priorities are. Games and entertainment in general are being ruined by companies hiring activists rather than people who want to make something customers might enjoy.
Thanks, I've not got much to add for reasons stated:
5. Not buying this one, the series has had many titles and the formula got stale and bloated. If we're saying the whole series went to the dogs based off the very last game released, that's a bit of a stretch IMO. GoT came out at a time people were still wanting AC Japan, it filled a gap, I played it and thought it was ok, very 'safe'. If the core audience was alienated from Shadows, what metric is being used for this because there hasn't been a new game since to compare it to. Personally think it's just a case of its been going too long and innovated very little, I got about 5h in to Shadows and never touched it again, it was just more of the same.
4. Can't comment as not familiar, last things I watched were the Mandalorian and Rogue 1 which I enjoyed, oh and that thing with Pedro Pascal. Didn't think much of the new trilogy but then I've never been that much of a fan generally. I played Outlaws briefly, forget why I put it down other than very bad stealth. Part of the reason I may be unaware is I don't really follow any news that would talk about this stuff, first I usually hear of it is someone having a wobble on here.
3. No idea about cape-slop tbh but the sooner it dies a death the better IMO.
2. Was it really ever massive, I recall 1 and 2 were for sure but no idea what happened after that.
1. I recall the first two were highly praised and one had a wobble, I googled the other game and its a live-service game, not sure where that correlates.
I can't say for sure what the main reasons were for any of these, it would be pure speculation based on limited info far more quantitative and qualitative data would be needed, remembering that the online discourse I see about stuff in general I don't see reflected in normal life, or certainly people are far less brave about voicing things. If people put themselves in certain echo chambers then you'll only hear what you want to hear and believe. I've always heavily leaned to logic and evidence over emotional thinking, and I'm just not convinced either way. Heck, shouldn't The Last of Us 2 have flopped based on most of the reasoning?
I think people generally believe what they want in spite of evidence to the contrary at times, and in these things its very hard to get any because a disgruntled employee or two posting something on X amounts to nothing. End of the day if I don't like something I won't buy it and move on, far more things going on that I could choose to be angry about instead but that wouldn't achieve anything.
![[FnG]magnolia](/styles/overclockers/avatars/9.png){kind=avatar}
