An award-winning video game composer aiming to take his fight against “wokification” to Congress found a telling parallel with the industry and politics.
“The downfall of DEI in gaming feels very similar to the 2024 elections.”
Despite altruistic intentions, spurring action to combat the spirit of the age often requires excessive disruption to comfort. To that end, the saturation of entertainment with woke ideology arguably reached a tipping point that Republican congressional candidate and “Halo” composer Marty O’Donnell sees as an encouraging sign in light of President Donald Trump’s 2024 victory.
The video game composer who also worked on the “Destiny” series recently penned a piece for DEIDetected, calling on gamers to continue to fight against the diversity quotas in the industry that have both sucked the life and the quality out of games.
“I believe the enthusiasm for the re-release of the original Halo is in large part due to the wokification of the gaming industry. After years of gamers fighting the infiltration of DEI in the industry, we are finally winning,” argued O’Donnell.
As he seeks to unseat incumbent Rep. Susie Lee (D) of Nevada’s Third Congressional District, the composer raised a comparison between an industry flop and then-Vice President Kamala Harris’ loss to Trump. Giving the example of “Concord,” which was estimated to sell fewer than 25,000 copies after less than two weeks on the market following almost a decade of development and an investment of “hundreds of millions of dollars” by Sony, he pointed to the timing of its failure in the weeks ahead of the election.
“At the same time that gamers fought and took back the gaming industry from woke leftists, voters fought and took back our country from woke leftists,” wrote O’Donnell after describing, “The game felt like it was created to check DEI boxes instead of appeal to gamers.”
Detailing personal experience facing Marxist agendas, he spoke to the impact on gaming as, “I saw firsthand the beginning of DEI in the industry. Instead of hiring people who played video games, corporations began requiring ‘diversity’ at the expense of the quality of games. The corporate demand of hiring quotas meant more and more employees in charge of creating games not only didn’t play games, they didn’t even like video games, and they certainly didn’t understand the audience.”
He also referenced Halo’s developer, Bungie, and said the “motto went from ‘We make games we want to play’ to ‘We create worlds that inspire friendships.'”
Another callout pointed to the injection of gender ideology in games like “Call of Duty” and “Dragon Age: The Veilguard” with “trans or non-binary” characters. “It’s hard for gamers to immerse themselves in a game when they are required to choose a ‘body type’ instead of gender and provide pronouns for their character at the start.”
Contrasting these experiences, O’Donnell joined in the fun with the White House as it was announced that “Halo: Campaign Evolved” would not be an Xbox-exclusive, marking yet another conflict resolved under Trump with the end of “The Console Wars.”
In response to a statement from GameStop, the White House shared images of the president and a meme version of Vice President J.D. Vance, taking on the roles of “Halo” characters, earning the support from the composer who referred to Trump as “America’s Master-in-Chief” and joked, “I’d come out of retirement for this remake!”
Yet another war ended by America’s Master-in-Chief! https://t.co/YUYFbwQ35m
— Marty O’Donnell (@MartyTheElder) October 27, 2025
I’d come out of retirement for this remake! https://t.co/5Sd5G2PuYl
— Marty O’Donnell (@MartyTheElder) October 27, 2025
Along with the humor, the congressional hopeful remained serious about his objective and wrote, “I love this country and anything worth loving is worth fighting for.”
With that, he implored the community, “And that’s why gamers must continue to fight back. I hope you’ll keep speaking out until these companies replace their quota hires who hate video games with workers who love games and want to make games they want to play. We can, and will, return this industry we love to what it once was.”
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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