Rock, I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this because, frankly, it should've been your parents. While I'm certain they were just trying to protect you: it's not nice that they kept something like this hidden and allowed you to go through life unsure as to why you're "different" from the others. It needs to be said, Rock: You're retarded. With that out of the way, I feel compelled to inform you that it is possible to both 1. be critical of dodgy practices which plague video games, like power creep... and 2. be critical of dodgy practices which plague video games, like DEI. Anyways, don't worry because I plan to actually explain my position using argumentation, rather than just insulting you and trying to discredit what you're saying by undermining it. ← That's your wheelhouse. We prefer to say things that are backed by reason and logic. While I'm confident that you'll fittingly attempt to write this off as "too many words" or "me caring too much", I'm sorry but I feel it's important to support my arguments: DEI is a backwards, regressive practice that is tangibly hurting the gaming industry. It is also flagrantly racist: blindly assuming advantages and disadvantages on the basis of nothing more than a person's race, which is definitionally racial prejudice btw (racism)... but I digress. The problem with DEI is that it's antithetical to merit. Meritocracy and equity cannot exist simultaneously. Equity, in practice, is literally providing incentives for diversity, while providing disincentives for a lack of it. This all but forces employers to artificially inflate the number of "diverse" people working under them to meet unwritten quotas. As a result, the gaming industry is "cutting corners" and loosening their hiring standards in order to achieve these incentives. As a result, you're getting people who wouldn't know what a "good video game" looked like if it landed on their foreheads designing your products: people who are underqualified, out of touch, and simply not as skilled as the other guys. In the days of equality, we were strictly getting the absolute most qualified person for the job, *regardless* of traits like race/gender/sexual orientation. This is why video games were so fucking good and why the preferences of consumers were always the top priority of companies: the people working in the industry were gamers themselves and they knew what worked, and what mattered. Instead, we now have underqualified developers, not to mention time, budget and resources being spent on shit that frankly just doesn't fucking matter to the average player. Nobody gives three quarters of a fuck if a studio is "diverse" or not, so the fact that millions of dollars are being spent on this instead of the games themselves is fucking retarded. Nobody gives a fuck if a medium that is literally about fun and escapism is "inclusive," so the fact that millions of dollars are being spent on this is fucking retarded. Meanwhile, "sensitivity and inclusivity consultants" are now being hired who literally exist to scrutinize/politicize games... and their function is to suggest changes to things that could be deemed "offensive" or politically incorrect. As a result, you're getting games that are more watered down, sanitized, and soulless. This muddies the waters and makes fiction worse for literally everyone, even if some of you are too stupid to realize it. While no system is perfect, equality was the closest thing we ever had to a perfect system... and then "equity" (the E in DEI) came in like a freight train and took that away from us because identity obsessed progressive retards (you) were indoctrinated by political activists who desired to exploit tribalism for personal gain and votes. "but u can still have merit and diversify, that's the point of equity!" → The *point* of equity is irrelevant. What matters is what equity actually is/does, in practice. "but if 2 ppl are equally qualified, u just have 2 hire the more diverse one!" → This is also nonsense. It is incredibly rare to get two people of *identical* qualifications, experience, and intelligence. As a result, it is impossible to get perfect, 1:1 diversity in any scenario. Equity was literally designed to artificially increase diversity in the workforce, because hiring based purely on qualifications was skewing heavily in favor of *white male applicants.* That's it. That's the entire reason it exists. Progressives didn't like this and screamed "wacism," because they're retarded and don't understand things like demographics, and how/why a workplace in a country that is 68% white might have a lot more white employees than black ones... or how/why an industry that skews heavily male/is preferred by men would have more male employees than female ones. You're the tourist, Rock. We actually care about our hobbies and want to protect them from people like yourself. Sit down and shut up for once.