The Writing Raven (AKA Raven Redgrave)

ALT Does DEI actually make video games more successful, or are we confusing potential with profit? We're back with another Psycho-Babble! This time, we react to Deborah Chantson's "Achievement Unlocked: Diversity Success" from the 2025 Game Devs of Color Expo. The presentation argues that diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) initiatives benefit game development and make companies money. But does the evidence support those conclusions? From claims about the "ideal" diverse team and working in a racialized majority to the statistic that diverse companies are 70% more likely to capture additional markets, we're breaking down the arguments, questioning the conclusions, and asking a simple question: Where's the proof? Plus, we're back with community memes, Super Chats, questionable fart jokes, and a whole lot of professional joy. Because at the end of the day, shouldn't making a good game come first?

ALT AAA gaming is facing a reckoning in 2026. Gaming industry layoffs, studio closures, canceled projects, and restructuring keep making headlines. But in December 2025, Raven and I were already investigating the financial and legal pressures threatening the AAA gaming model. We didn’t just warn about layoffs. We examined investor warnings, rising AAA development costs, five-to-seven-year production cycles, COPPA changes, biometric data privacy risks, insurance exposure, and video game addiction lawsuits. Add those pressures together, and the question becomes unavoidable: how much longer can the AAA business model operate this way? This is our original investigation, published December 3, 2025. Now that publishers are talking about “changing market conditions,” it’s worth revisiting what we uncovered. Gaming isn’t dying. But the AAA model that’s been taking players for granted may be in serious trouble.