Elon Musk Calls ‘Woke’ Themes In Video Games ‘Utterly Unacceptable,’ Sparking Debate On Politics In Gaming

Billionaire Elon Musk took to his platform X recently to express his opinion on the gaming industry.

Musk replied to a post on X that criticized the upcoming role-playing game, Avowed, for including a pronoun option for players’ customizable character saying that “Having pronouns in a fantasy video game is utterly unacceptable.” This sparked a greater conversation on the social media site regarding the connection between politics and gaming.

Mark Kern, a former video game executive and author of the post Musk commented on, brought attention the the idea that “woke” culture should not have a place in video games and said that “gamers must send a clear message” about what they want to see (or don’t want to see) in the games that they play. Musk agreed with this sentiment and argued that games with a focus on more diversity, equity and inclusion can “damage” the art of the video game and its immersive qualities. “It breaks you out of the story,” he said.

Obviously, not every gamer will take offence to things like pronouns or diversity initiatives in video games, but there is a vocal group of gamers who would agree with Musk and Kern and feel that such things are not necessary in video games. In recent years, many gamers have spoken up about their distaste for messages within video games that could be viewed as political. 

In prior cases, it seems that there had been a disconnect between the themes of the games and their target audience. Young men have consistently been the primary consumers of the video game industry, and perhaps the poor reception of recent titles such as Concord and Dustborn is due to the games themes being unappealing to the majority of gaming consumers. 

X being X, this discussion prompted some hot takes from gamers both in agreement and disagreement with Musk’s thoughts on the matter. In any case, game developers won’t always cater to the preferences of one group over another, but the industry is certainly large enough for everyone to enjoy a game that resonates with them.

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Anna Cheek

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