"Woke" or "broke"?

Why “politically correct” video games are polarizing

The "Shadow Broker" from Bioware's sci-fi masterpiece "Mass Effect": just one of hundreds of video games that are branded as "woke" and therefore not unreservedly recommendable in relevant forums.

(Bild: EA)

There's work involved: Steam curator "Woke Content Detector" has checked more than 1500 video games for their supposedly exaggerated political correctness - and most of them fail. But why does the user get so involved in the topic? And do games companies, like Hollywood once did, really use the popularity of their products to push an agenda? Krone+ analyzes.

"Counter-Strike 2"? No way, you can now also play it as a woman. "The Elder Scrolls Online"? Contains "subtle pro-LGBTQ messages", so not a good game either. "Baldur's Gate 3" should be avoided because there are optional homosexual romances in the role-playing game hit, and in "Witcher 3" the AI men can't hide their homosexuality either. And hands off "Until Dawn" - there's actually a pixel couple who don't belong to the same ethnic group. Welcome to the world of politicized gaming, where culture wars are fought and entertainment products are pigeonholed into ideological categories by missionaries of their worldview. Krone+ takes a virtual close-up look at the chasms that open up in the gaming world - and shows that the arguments of the opposing camps are not always consistent when it comes to political correctness.