I think you proved yourself wrong by saying "appealing to a subset of people, is NOT universal". (Though, "appealing to straight people" isn't an actual thing, as there's hardly anything that gays dislike that straights like. There's no things one could break universal appeal with by putting in things that straight people generally like.)
Exactly. You can make a game with cars in it, with jumping in it, with nice pastel colors in it, and there's no large group in the world that will decidedly dislike those. But when you start doing woke catering of whatever minority themes for example, as you said, the game loses its universal appeal. Often, to even those minority groups too, as such forcing is almost always extremely inauthentic, patronizing them and insulting their intelligence. The obtuse Veilguard clips being shared recently really drive this home. Game might as well make you play Hitler "correctly" at that point, a total universal appeal suicide.
Before you say "but I don't like those men/muslims/women/terfs/gays/dog eaters/dog loving people!!!", that kind of argument is EXACTLY what disqualifies something from universal appeal. This is not hard.
Exactly. You can make a game with cars in it, with jumping in it, with nice pastel colors in it, and there's no large group in the world that will decidedly dislike those. But when you start doing woke catering of whatever minority themes for example, as you said, the game loses its universal appeal. Often, to even those minority groups too, as such forcing is almost always extremely inauthentic, patronizing them and insulting their intelligence. The obtuse Veilguard clips being shared recently really drive this home. Game might as well make you play Hitler "correctly" at that point, a total universal appeal suicide.
Before you say "but I don't like those men/muslims/women/terfs/gays/dog eaters/dog loving people!!!", that kind of argument is EXACTLY what disqualifies something from universal appeal. This is not hard.