Political and social agendas are bad for video games; EA is learning the hard way thanks to Battlefield V’s poor pre-order numbers. But Ubisoft won’t be making the same mistakes as EA. The Division 2 would avoid politics as Massive Entertainment believes it is “bad for business.”
Speaking in a recent during the Sweden Gaming Conference, Massive Entertainment COO Alf Condelius stated that they created a world where people are trying to be good in a slowly decaying world but some developers like to put politics into it, which Ubisoft will avoid as much as it can. He stated that they do not want to take a stance in current politics.
It’s a universe and a world that we created for people to explore how to be a good person in a slowly decaying world. But people like to put politics into that, and we back away from those interpretations as much as we can because we don’t want to take a stance in current politics.
It’s also bad for business, unfortunately, if you want the honest truth… but it is interesting and it is a discussion that we have, and it’s an ongoing discussion we have with our users, of course, because people want to put an interpretation into the universe that we create and they want to see their own reality in the fantasies that we give them, and the stories that the games are.
EA is the biggest supporter of politics in video games and with Battlefield V the company split its player base. Some supported EA’s take on World War 2, War, and feminism while others didn’t. And as we now know, people not supporting EA are in abundance, the buzz around Battlefield V is pretty much dead.
The Division 2 is set in the fallen Washington DC where people come together to rebuild with help from The Division agents. Ubisoft keeping politics out of it is definitely good for business and we all know capitalism is blind to such matters.