This isn't anything new, they've been doing this for a few years. They cite "toxicity" for any serious fan backlash against shitty gameplay decisions they've made. Stellaris had some nice incidents with this where their devs whined about how no one liked their updates. CK2 would have too, but the worst bullshit Paradox forced in there (the India DLC which literally broke the game since they seemingly never bothered to test it) was a bit before the days you could use buzzwords like "toxicity" and silence vast swathes of people. I know Hearts of Iron 4 had some nice drama too, it looked like shit on release, especially compared to the glorious WWII autism simulator that was HOI3 with all expansions. And don't forget the drama with East vs West (they've memoryholed the thing and it's forbidden to bring it up) and that one EU3 spinoff game (based on a popular mod) they had which likewise was memoryholed. The latter was especially funny considering the lead developer of it was an utter joke himself (he was some Portuguese guy who even after the game was canned made posts insisting it was still happening).
It sucks since I've been a fan of Paradox since old-school Europa Universalis 3 and the original Crusader Kings, but the studio has gone downhill. Their forums are increasingly shit, and their DLC policy is basically "you must wait until the Steam sale" which costs you more than their old expansions did. I guess you'd expect nothing else out of a bunch of current year Swedes, but still. Also I'm forever salty on how Europa Universalis 4 launched as EU3.5 yet downgraded itself afterwards (because who cares about a dynamic economy of goods in a grand strategy game, right?) and made you pay for all the relevant features.
If the Paradox Forums and its community is like what I remember, there could be a good community watch thread. Been a while since I've been there, I know they're doing a spiritual sequel to EU: Rome with Victoria elements, which did look cool. I did see the devs/mods get a bit salty over too many "respectfully disagree" (lol) ratings to some element of the game which blatantly looked like they were going to include it some 10-15 dollar DLC.
And the what the fuck is this shit about "fascism in play"? I bet these dumbfucks don't even remember how Vampire the Masquerade inspired
Rod "Vesago" Ferrell to kill people, which everyone sane thought was just the actions of some lunatic who literally argued in court he did it because he was autistic. Their logic with "fascism" is literally Satanic Panic-tier, it reads like what a "Christian alternative" (put out by some megachurch where the pastor is begging for a new private jet/fucking hookers on the side) of some tabletop game would be. What a joke.
To be fair, Rod Ferrell wasn't diagnosed with autism until after he was convicted (or at least the diagnosis wasn't really public until afterwards) and IIRC, his defense tried to plead schizophrenia instead of autism.
Otherwise, you are spot on.
Vampire: The Masquerade going "woke" with stuff like V5 and the new Bloodlines 2 is pretty much the 2010's equivalent of TSR taking demons, devils, and the assassin class out of AD&D 2E to appease the church ladies and soccer moms who claimed D&D was "Satanic"
And we all know how well that one worked out for TSR....
The main issue with Paradox (and by extension what is left of White Wolf) is that they listen to the extremely vocal SJW minority that is in command of Onyx Path and dominates the WoD fanbase on RPGnet (which is such an SJW cesspit it has a Community Watch thread here on the Farms) and they don't listen to any actual WoD fans because the silent majority of the WoD fandom always get drowned out by the screeching dangerhairs and the handful of old Goth burnouts who went full dangerhair in an attempt to stay "with it"
The old White Wolf Forums was almost as bad as the Onyx Path Forums that succeeded it in terms of echo chambers and the WW writers listening to the loudest vocal minority, although there was less SJW bullshit because it wasn't really in vogue yet.
However, back in the days of the old White Wolf Forums, there were plenty of other dedicated places to discuss World of Darkness (at least the old one from the 90's) so you had a lot more options (unless you were one of the few who liked Requiem and the New WoD) since Masquerade was still fondly remembered by the RPG fandom at the time instead of being the pretentious woke punchline it is today.
Now Onyx Path is the only major discussion space fully dedicated to World of Darkness and while you occasionally see WoD discussed on EN World, The RPG Site, or RPG Pub, it's not the same and those threads are usually few and far between.
To their credit, Onyx Path did keep the WoD license going after CCP gutted White Wolf and then Paradox bought out the IP's and focused on trying to reboot Classic WoD after the surprise success of Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition.
A lot of people were excited at the news of Paradox buying White Wolf after CCP gutted the company so they could get the IP to an MMO that turned out to be complete vaporware. But it was too good to be true...
The first warning sign was probably Martin Ericsson basically admitting that he believed that Requiem was a mistake, which rubbed a lot of people on Onyx Path Forums the wrong way.
Combine that with a bunch of other missteps such as the decision to resume the controversial metaplot after V20 deliberately stayed metaplot neutral and an increased focus on Nordic LARP events in Europe, and a lot of people in both camps were worried.
Then came the point of no return, which was Paradox hiring Zak Sabbath as a freelance artist to do some artwork for an upcoming WoD project. Keep in mind that this was BEFORE he was accused of sexual assault and that he had no creative input at White Wolf/Paradox and was solely doing some artwork. But merely contracting him at all was a mortal sin in the eyes of the woke mobs at Onyx Path because despite Zak being an avowed left-wing feminist (cue the male feminist jokes) he was already persona non grata in the eyes of the SJW's because he disagreed with a transgender mod at RPGnet.
After that, there were smear campaigns (including a furry claiming that the game was a Nazi dog whistle) and Paradox decided to jettison any attempts at reaching out to the old fanbase that kept WoD alive and made the 20th Anniversary books successful.
Instead, Paradox bends over backwards to appeal to the SJW dangerhairs at Onyx Path and V5 turns out to be a horrid flop that pisses off both sides and the infamous Chechnya section in an early supplement kills White Wolf as a company once and for all.
Bloodlines 2 seems to be Paradox attempting a Hail Mary pass at saving the IP but given that they're still trying to appeal to the woke crowd, it's gonna be the final nail in the coffin.
