> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://aftermath.site/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# The Last Thing Video Games Needs Are More Dog Whistles
- URL: https://aftermath.site/game-rant-facebook-dragon-age/
- Published: 2025-01-30T23:06:54.000Z
- Updated: 2025-10-27T17:09:22.000Z
- Author: Luke Plunkett
- Tags: Media, Video Games, chuds, dragon age, ea, ea sports fc, electronic arts, game rant, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2025-10-27 13:00

I opened Facebook yesterday--I know, I should deactivate it, but I need it for [Marketplace](https://aftermath.site/facebook-marketplace-is-not-fun-to-use/) stuff--and the very first thing I was confronted with at the top of my feed was this:

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/30/f5/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994/content/images/2025/10/image-4-w-677-1.png)

I should know better than to read *anything* in my feed, but this stopped me dead in my tracks, because it's an *extremely* shitty post.

To break it down: EA's shares did indeed decline last week, and the under-performing (by EA's own expectations) *Dragon Age: The Veilguard* would have played its part, but the drop-off was *mostly* because of a huge slide in sales for *EA Sports FC 25*, an ageing football series EA's entire financial security rests on and whose woes--and fans’ exhaustion with them--[I've written about previously](https://aftermath.site/ea-fc-madden-nba-2k-recycled-dogshit/).

Game Rant's actual news story about this,[ on its website](https://gamerant.com/ea-shares-decline-underperforming-game-sales/?ref=aftermath.site), makes this clear. And the lead image for that story on Gamerant.com is EA's logo. Yet on this Facebook post promoting that same story *Dragon Age* is mentioned before *EAFC*, *Dragon Age* is used as the background of the image, and front and centre is a picture of a *Dragon Age* character. What gives?

Game Rant are far from the only games site[ to overemphasise *Dragon Age*'s role in EA's financials](https://www.windowscentral.com/gaming/dragon-age-the-veilguard-missed-expectations-half?ref=aftermath.site), partly because few games writers understand financials, but mostly because the majority of readers of specialist video game websites don't care about sports games. But specifically centring Taash, a nonbinary character from a game[ that has received disproportionate blowback for its casting decisions](https://aftermath.site/aftermath-hours-podcast-dragon-age-veilguard-review-controversy/), in a post specifically tailored just for Facebook, a platform[ that has jettisoned all attempts at civil discourse and abandoned itself wholly to the very worst people on the internet](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/08/meta-layoffs-factchecking-partners?ref=aftermath.site), sure is a look.

I reached out to Game Rant's EiC for comment on the discrepancy between the story and its Facebook post, but have not heard back. Whether the packaging was intentional or not, though, it's serving the same purpose regardless: catering to, and riling up, the chuds.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/30/f5/30f5b1bb-84ee-4c26-b446-fb9a5e512994/content/images/2025/10/leave4-1.png)

It doesn't take an oracle to work out that a lot of the comments under the Facebook post look like this

Posts like this are a handy reminder that, as we see major outlets like the[ New York Times](https://www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-news/former-editor-nyt-biased-on-trans-hiring?ref=aftermath.site) and[ Washington Post](https://www.npr.org/2025/01/04/nx-s1-5248299/cartoonist-quits-wapo-over-bezos-trump-cartoon-washingtonpost?ref=aftermath.site) already beginning to cower before the spectre of authoritarian rule, and pivot to assholes as desperately as[ so many outlets once tried to pivot to video](https://aftermath.site/cnn-layoffs-pivot-to-video/), they won't be the only masthead to do so.

The last thing *any of us* [needs right now](https://aftermath.site/sweet-baby-detected-conspiracy-theory-steam/) are video game websites doing the same.