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Most people have little to no idea how the industry works, thus blaming what they can see with their own eyes. The woke stuff is what's most visible, and the perception that things are worse because of it isn't wrong, but it does end up being a catch all for more than it probably should be.
Ultimately, it does come down to money and mismanagement, but not the way people generally understand it. It is greed, but its born out of two things.
1.) is the desire to market to an audience which doesn't exist to make more money.
Companies wrongly believe that the vocal minority somehow represented their customer base or at least, an untapped market. They don't often realize that the target market they are shooting for isn't really their audience and never were. The other thing is, the "modern audience", small as it may be represents a niche of people that are diametrically opposed to their core customer base. Making something for the smaller group alienates the core group. This is effectively why this stuff fails the vast majority of the time.
It's a bit like building cars for people who can't drive in a way that ruins them for people who can.
2.) Stakeholder capitalism. Effectively, the people behind the financing (companies like Black Rock) who championed things like ESG scores provide funding with strings attached. A company that doesn't want to take on all the financial risks themselves, makes things easier on themselves by accepting third party financing and the conditions that go with it. Unfortunately, companies like Black Rock pushed more and more of this nonsense, even re-engineering the hiring practices of these companies as a result. Basically, when you look into the ownership of these companies (like Disney, EA, Ubisoft etc.), there Black Rock is. It has seats on the boards, etc.
It's CEO, a few years back literally said in a video interview (2018 I believe) that it was up to them to engineer behaviors in people to change the world because it thinks it knows better. Granted, I'm paraphrasing but you should get the point. At the time, Black Rock and its ilk had the money to burn. today, the CEO admits this was a mistake and its pulled away from a lot of this stuff though I don't think its completely gone from their playbooks. In effect, companies can't generally afford this thinking anymore.
But you are absolutely right. It is mismanagement on multiple levels. It's also greed. Greed towards chasing more customers, greed in that the companies want outside funding and investors to help lighten the burden, and therefore risk in creating games which is always a gamble. It's being out of touch with the market, its being out of touch with reality and forgetting who their customers are. These companies work really hard towards chasing new customers to the point where they lose their old ones. This doesn't work when you are chasing a small percentage of the population and excluding a larger one that used to be your customer base.
The shift is absolutely tied to identity politics. It's intertwined with the mismanagement, financing and development sides of the industry. Again, I'm not saying you can't have a shit game without the identity politics. We know this isn't true historically. Another way we can tell this is the case is by looking at the Eastern studios. They aren't turning out garbage like this. They are creating good looking, entertaining games that give customers what they want in half the time and around one third to half the cost. They are also doing it at a higher level of quality. So it's not the entire industry that's like this. It's the industry in Western countries. The issue isn't 100% woke, but its not as if the woke crap isn't a major factor here.
Now, I hate this because Eastern developers are in some ways greedier than American studios with their monetization models. They are predatory as fuck. The First Descendant drew a lot of criticism for its early monetization model and pricing, which was way out of line for games of that type. Today, it's mostly a better value than a lot of other games on that front, with only buying full ultimate characters really being a massive rip off. Aion 2, Jesus. I thought Star Trek Online was bad. Charging $30 for an outfit per server instead of on an account wide unlock is complete nonsense. I believe their subscription service is like that too. It's maximum effort greed all around with those guys. Ananta will probably be bad on that front too.
Again, being inclusive isn't woke by itself. This has been covered numerous times. I have thousands of hours in the ME games and I wouldn't call the trilogy games woke. (I would call Andromeda woke though its tame by modern standards). Diversity or LGBT characters aren't bad things by themselves. How they are implemented and portrayed matters here. Again, context is key to understanding this.
Yeah, if you think Star Trek's core ideology hasn't changed since 1966, I can see why you'd be confused on the topic. It most certainly has.
Star Trek was always progressive. It wasn't ever woke until the modern era. There is a distinct difference between the two. The stories told by each are done through vastly different lenses at different times in history. But, for the same of brevity, I'll keep it simple.
Classic Star Trek (TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT)
Star Trek takes a social issue of the day, then presents both sides of that argument or an issue equally through its narrative and characters. Both sides and their points of view are generally portrayed fairly. We watch as the characters explore their choices, weighing the morality of each perspective, then choosing one way or the other. In some stories, the Starfleet officers help other races and cultures to see their more enlightened perspective through compassion, logic, and example. It's done respectfully when it does take sides. But often, the viewer is left to decide whether one thing is right or wrong. It's not always subtle to be fair, but its often nuanced and in some cases, its' very subtle about what its trying to say, without forcing it down the viewers throats.
Nu Trek (STD, PIC S1-2, SNW, Starfleet Academy)
Nu Trek presents one side as being absolutely correct. It belittles the other side of the argument, making them appear dumb and less intelligent, or less enlightened. It tells the viewer what perspective is the correct one from the way they frame the opposing viewpoint and those characters. It doesn't trust its audience to be able to choose for themselves or to think about anything presented critically. There is no nuance, no subtlety. It forces its version of morality down your throats. The portrayal of the Klingon Empire is a great example of this. It's Klingons aren't portrayed as honorable warriors like they mostly are in classic Trek, but rather as xenophobic racists. The showrunner of the first season literally said the Klingons were allegory for MAGA supporters.
This is one of the core problems. People assume that woke is just a pejorative term for being progressive, or progressive ideology. It is not.
I think its possible to make an argument that woke is the primary reason for Star Trek currently failing, but its not quite that simple. It's mismanagement, but Kurtzman and co are believers in the woke ideology and the leftist playbook. I mean, you can basically hear it from Kurtzman and co themselves in interviews. To say woke isn't a massive part of the problem isn't seeing the whole picture. Because when you look at it, there are stories that are badly written that aren't necessarily woke. That might make you dismiss the idea that woke is the cause, but when you look at who the writers are on that show, you will realize that they are all young, inexperienced and pretty much towing the company line which is all about woke messaging. Stakeholder capitalism and other factors come into play here just like they do in the gaming industry.
But really, it's writers who place messaging first above telling a good story. Writers that are by in large very inexperienced who work for cheap and haven't had the time in the industry to hone their craft. I'll leave you with this gem on that front:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOmZ7WsRXxg
. It simply cannot have anything to do with what they're saying outright or the colossal wastes of money to do it