DEIWatchdog / DEI Watchdog

Submission 6,904

Part of a series on Gaming. [View Related Entries]

About

DEIWatchdog or DEI Watchdog is a website that hosts reviews of video games based on how many diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices developers supposedly follow or implement in the game. The site, created by Redditor u/Mundane-Cry6751 in December 2024, is similar to Steam's woke content detector and was launched in beta in January 2025. Shortly after its launch, the site became the subject of mockery by some online and experienced server issues due to too much traffic and was purportedly taken offline, resulting in a window reading "Website Under Development" when accessed.

History

On December 4th, 2024, Redditor u/Mundane-Cry6751 made a post to the subreddit /r/KotakuInAction^[1] sharing a screenshot related to the production of their "DEI review website," garnering over 570 upvotes in a month. The URL "deiwatchdog.com" was created that day.

On January 1st, 2025, the same Redditor made a post to /r/KotakuInAction^[2] announcing the beta launch of their website DEI Watchdog, hosted at the URL DEIWatchdog.com.^[8] The website allows users to read reviews of video games based on how much they supposedly adhere to DEI practices, essentially telling people how "woke" the game might be. The site also has a voting system that allows users to vote on reviews based on their accuracy. The post gained over 800 upvotes in five days. Attached to the post is a screenshot of an on-site review for the game Dustborn, which claims it is "ultra woke."

On January 5th, the @DEIWatchdog X^[6] page posted the message, "Our website is currently overloaded. We are working on the issue and kindly ask for your understanding. We didn’t expect so many people to be interested in the site." Two hours later the account posted^[7] that the site was back up and running, however, it has since been unavailable as of January 6th.

Online Presence

Following the beta launch of DEIWatchdog, a subreddit dedicated to the site was launched at /r/DEIWatchdog.^[3] An X^[4] page, @deiwatchdog, was also launched in early January 2025, which posts every time there is a new game reviewed on the site.

On January 5th, 2025, X^[5] user @airbagged posted several screenshots of reviews from the site, writing, "THEY MADE A DEI VIDEO GAME REVIEW WEBSITE […] this is gonna provide endless laughs," garnering over 44,000 likes and 2,900 reposts in a day.

The user added a comment under the post later sharing a screenshot of a "too many requests" page and writing, "it's worth noting that you don't need to buy any games, you can just register and flood their site with positive reviews of 'woke' games if you want. also lol."