The sad reality of the video game business is that good games fail for a variety of reasons. Take, for example, a game like "Lawbreakers." Evan liked the game very much and described it in his 84/100 review as "a complex, physical, deep competitive shooter," but it was a flop nonetheless. Its emergency pivot battle royale follow-up, Radical Heights, showed early promise, but it was a rush job and it showed.

Games failed for a variety of reasons, the two most obvious being Overwatch and PUBG. (Fortnite showed up a bit late to actually join the beatdown.) But Cliff Brzezinski, co-founder of Boss Key Studios, has some other thoughts on where it all went wrong in an Instagram post that will soon prove unfortunate.

"Ever since the studio shut down, I've been racking my brain about what we could have done differently. When the big game Overwatch was announced, I pivoted hard. I was less kind to my design ideas and more dictatorial."

"The one big revelation I had was that I pushed my own personal political beliefs in an increasingly divided world.

"Instead of a storyline that said, 'This game looks neat,' it became, 'This is a game with a "woke brother" who tries to push his haphazard politics in a gender-neutral bathroom. Instead of 'these characters look like fun,' it became 'this is a studio with a CEO who refuses to make the female characters sexier. Instead of "Who am I going to choose?" it became "White bastards shoving diversity into their game and smelling their smug farts in interviews.

I'm not sure how to interpret this; looking at the LawBreakers wiki, the game seems to have a relatively well-rounded cast of nine men, seven women, two androids, of various races, but overtly political or "enlightened." I don't recall it being presented as a game, nor did Brzezinski himself talk about it. Former Boss Key art director Tramel Isaacs said in a 2016 interview with AList Daily that Brzezinski was intent on "making diverse games and developing diverse talent" at the studio, which is laudable. However, games such as "Overwatch," "Apex Legends," and "Rainbow Six Siege" employ casts that are diverse beyond compare and do not appear to have cost them anything.

I think the reality is much simpler than Brzezinski makes it sound: "LawBreakers" and "Radical Heights" were just the wrong time, and frankly, they are nowhere near as valuable as they were 10 years ago.

The Boss Key experience was rough enough to turn Brzezinski off from making video games forever. So maybe we are talking about Boss Key again.

Update: Bleszinski has updated his post to emphasize that his political leanings were a factor in the failure of LawBreakers and Boss Key.

"Marketing, timing, being PS over Xbox, and more were also factors," he wrote.