‘Lords Of The Fallen’ Developer Promises They “Will Not Be Integrating Any Social Or Political Agendas” Into Their Games
In recognition of the fact that players “do not appreciate” such overtly and preachy messaging in their video games, Lords of the Fallen series developer CI Games has promised that they “will not be integrating any social or political agendas” into any of their future titles.
The Polish-based developer, who in addition to the fantasy action RPG duology are perhaps best known for the Sniper: Ghost Warrior series, offered their thoughts on the topic ‘modern audience writing’ while speaking to attendees of their recent “investors chat”.
Hosted by CEO Marek Tymiński, SVP Development Tom O’Connor, and Global Marketing Director Ryan Hill on January 8th, the chat essentially served as an open Q&A session in which investors could press the studio on the current state of their operations.
Per a recap of the chat provided by Polish market news outlet Strefa Inwestorów, at one point during the chat, one such investor took it upon himself ask a particularly burning question, bluntly asking the trio of CI Games representatives, “What is your stance on DEI in gaming?”
Fielding the question on the company’s behalf, Hill informed the curious guest, “We remain committed to producing player-first video games that prioritise an excellent user experience with compelling thematics and characters created specifically for core and adjacent audiences.”
“While some video games have recently taken the opportunity to embed social or political agendas within their experiences, it is clear that many players do not appreciate this, and as a result, we have seen a number of high profile releases underperforming commercially during the last year alone,” he added. “Our games will always be developed to maximise player enjoyment and commercial success, and as such, we will not be integrating any social or political [agendas] into these experiences going forward having observed the high risk this can present.”
Providing some additional albeit indirect insight into the company’s decision to reject sociopolitical grandstanding in favor of providing their players with quality video game experiences, when later asked by a same investor as to what the company believed was “the most important thing when planning a marketing strategy”, Hill explained, “The most important aspect of a marketing campaign is knowing and understanding your target audiences, and as part of this, who makes up your primary, secondary, and subsequent cohorts.”
“Knowing your audience and how best to connect and ultimately convert them to a sale is the best way to run a highly efficient and cost effective marketing campaign,” said the marketing exec. “The key is to then turn these primary audiences into brand advocates and evangelists, who will in turn amplify marketing efforts at no additional cost by recommending and discussing the game to friends and relevant gaming communities. By fully understanding our audience, we are able to ensure marketing materials are specifically designed to connect with them at an emotional level, and can also ensure we are promoting these marketing materials in the correct places.”
Interestingly, CI Games is not the only developer to have recently confirmed their opposition to the concept of DEI.
Joining the studio in this line of thoughts is Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead Game Studios, whose COO Johan Pilestedt recently called on devs to “make good games, don’t make contemporary political statements”, and Ori series home Moon Studios, whose CEO Thomas Mahler has made it clear that he finds “that entire approach perverted“.
At current, CI Games is currently working on further updates to Lords of the Fallen, as well as its sequel, currently named Project 3.
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