That's exactly how it works. 'Get Woke, Go Broke' doesn't kick in instantly. By now everyone knows you get one freebie when trashing a franchise and it's the sales for the entry after the big DEI-fest which really matter. Companies who are fully paid up to the message pretend not to know this, however.
It's because normies don't pay any attention to gaming news; they buy based mostly on how much they liked the previous entry in the franchise. Witcher 3 was good, so Witcher 4 will get the normie dollar. Witcher 4 is almost certainly going to be terrible, so Witcher 5 won't get the normie dollar even if its done a hard course correction.
That's exactly how it works. 'Get Woke, Go Broke' doesn't kick in instantly. By now everyone knows you get one freebie when trashing a franchise and it's the sales for the entry after the big DEI-fest which really matter. Companies who are fully paid up to the message pretend not to know this, however.
It's because normies don't pay any attention to gaming news; they buy based mostly on how much they liked the previous entry in the franchise. Witcher 3 was good, so Witcher 4 will get the normie dollar. Witcher 4 is almost certainly going to be terrible, so Witcher 5 won't get the normie dollar even if its done a hard course correction.