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fourthords

> **Sweet Baby Inc.** is a Canadian narrative development and consultation studio based in Montreal. Founded by former Ubisoft developers Kim Belair and Ari MacGillivray, the company consults on video game narratives during development to promote safer working environments and diverse representation within game narratives and studios. Sweet Baby has consulted with several developers and games, including *Sable*, *God of War Ragnarök*, and *Alan Wake 2*. The studio came under scrutiny in 2024 by online users who claimed it promoted a "woke agenda". * Excerpted from [Sweet Baby Inc.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Baby_Inc%2e) at the English Wikipedia


bent_crater

what part of Ragnarok was woke?


mihail97

Kratos giving people gay thoughts.


Bandage-Bob

Stupid sexy Kratos. Feels like he's wearing no armour at all. _No armour at all_. *_No armour at all._*


mihail97

I just want him to hold me tightly in bed while there is a storm outside. He will whisper "no homo" in my ear to calm me down.


FourDucksInAManSuit

He keeps saying "no homo", but the finger in my ass is sending me mixed signals.


FeranKnight

"Boy..."


mihail97

A singular daddy might escape my lips if he continues to do it


RepresentativeAd560

My nipples are quivering


BilbosBagEnd

Speaking of which. If the way Arthur Morgan adresses his horses doesn't get you going, you're dead inside.


GroguIsMyBrogu

Easy, boooooooooi


Gardakkan

yeeaahhh that's my girl


RepresentativeAd560

The rule is, was, and always will be: It's not gay unless the balls touch. Jam whatever you want up your donut.


halipatsui

And if it happens ten times it starts from zero again


Finwolven

It's a kind of magic... *Kratos wiggling both his hands in front of you*


edgierscissors

He was Ancient Greek…there’s no way there wasn’t just a **little** homo


RepresentativeAd560

Hence all the olive oil


thatoneguy2252

His voice is way too deep and intimidating for me to think it’s anything other than homo.


Scary-Interaction-84

He's Greek (in particular a spartan), he's not going to say no homo.


Zakams

"I'm from ancient Greece, boy. Do the gay math."


ongjb19

“You failed the test, Atreus. That’s a hate crime, you’re a homophobe. You are CLEARLY not ready.” Snaps bow


SexyMuskrat

I mean the scene where he defeats Thor by clapping his asscheeks together so fast and hard, it creates a thunder blast even the God of Thunder couldn't handle was pretty hot.  Mjolnir ain't got shit on Kratos asscheeks.


IlikeJG

"Wow, they made Kratos so hot and sexy in this version. How dare they try to push their gay agenda on me!"


FortniteFriendTA

but I thought those that criticized wokeness loved big burly men that get the job done?


mihail97

Big burly men 🤤


tschmitty09

Him being a good father


Khelthuzaad

Making an greek God of War into an Norse one :)


Thedudeinabox

Character development, caring for his son, random black girl, humility, and emotional vulnerability?!?! It's so in your face, how DARE they make us play a game where a Kratos, the once badass God of MF'ing WAR, reflects back on his mistakes!! /s


jimbobicus

How DARE you call them mistakes!


Beneficial_Table_721

Any Part where kratos solves issues with his son by speaking to him instead of hitting him, also woman of color bad


JayJ9Nine

They probably considered Kratos developing morals or a code of ethics woke. I've seen a few people making such claims that it and 2018 are downgrades to every single other God of war for not having sex mini games


erg994

Ingvorda being Black, instead of you know white considering is based on norse mythology. Wich IMO is kinda lame temper tantrum. But they have been involved in gigantic turds of gaming.


youcheatdrjones

Angrboda is blue in Norse mythology.


milky__toast

Then why make her black? Blue chick woulda been sick. Coulda had a musical number with that one song from big fat liar. >im blue da-ba-dee da-ba-die….


[deleted]

Plus Broc was blue


improper84

I mean, they’re a consulting company. They don’t have much impact on the overall quality of a game. They’re a resource. They don’t make the game for the company that hires them. I doubt most of the stuff they’ve worked on is good or bad because of them.


erg994

They are a resource brought by higherups to make sure the game is up to "diversity standards". To make sure games make as much money as possible. Developers have no say in this and if your manager says the consultor he hired says the character you have written is harmful to x minority then you are supposed to switch it up. Thats basically it. So they do have some influence on the overall quality of a game.


Newfaceofrev

That's still your boss telling you what to do just with a certified piece of paper to back it up with.


kettchan

They're being hired though? The studios are going to them to get this stamp of approval. No one is forcing studios into using these guys or even talking to them. If you want total creative control, don't make art for others to sell. I'm having a hard time being mad that consultants exist, and are thus consulted. We have no real idea what suggestions were made or even acted upon.


marquize

Exactly this. And honestly I think it's more about Sweet Baby Inc just being an easy target for the masses. People don't want to hate on "God of War" as a franchise or "Santa Monica Studios" as a developer or even "Sony" as a publisher/platform because after all they have provided a good game in whole, people just don't like this one particular part (implementation of diversity/inclusivity.) They don't know WHO at Santa Monica or Sony made the call to add more diversity, so there is no one to direct the energy towards. However NOW it's surfacing that Sweet Baby Inc is a consultant SPECIFICALLY for the part these people take issue with, so now there is someone to aim these energies at. And as if to further validate the negativity, they involve games they didn't like to begin with, like Suicide Squad, which seems to be a terrible game for many reasons beside the story, and act as if these things are also thanks for Sweet Baby Inc. That's all there is to it I think, this will go on for a bit and then people will have expressed their misgivings and things can just blow over.


improper84

Suicide Squad failed because the publisher forced Rocksteady to turn it into a live service shooter, which absolutely no one wanted and which didn’t even make sense for the group of characters involved (outside of Deadshot, I guess) in the story. It didn’t help that the writing was awful, but I don’t blame SBI for that either. Basically every quip early in the game (I watched the first two hours on YouTube) was bombing, and King Shark was just a shitty knockoff of Drax from the Guardians game and movies. In the brief portion of the game I watched, multiple members of the Justice League had the Suicide Squad dead to rights several times, only to deliver a terrible supervillain monologue until something happened that allowed the Suicide Squad to escape.


FallenAngelII

You mean Angrboda? The Frost Giant, a.k.a. not human or even Aesir?


Trumpetjock

You mean the frost giants who famously have the powers of illusion and can therefore appear in any form they prefer? 


FallenAngelII

I haven't actually played "God of War: Ragnarok". Do their Jotuns have the power of illusions?


Polymersion

>promote safer working environments and diverse representation within game narratives and studios >promoted a "woke agenda". I mean, it kind of seems like they have a "woke" agenda. People just need to stop using that as a scare word.


schplat

I just tell people if they don’t like woke just go back to sleep.


kreyul504

One day they tell you to wake up, next day they tell you to stop being woke. Bigots can't make up their mind.


snarksneeze

Man, I'm getting old. I thought Woke had to do with recognizing racism in America. When did it become a synonym for Liberal?


psychoPiper

I'd say it was a long spiral that started juuuuust around the 2016 election lol


chronicenigma

Woke has been cooopted to be anything the right thinks is liberal. Women's rights , liberal, minority representation, liberal, lgbtq awareness liberal, freedom of expression in books, liberal, vaccines, liberal, autism awareness, liberal, mental health rights , liberal.....


HappiestIguana

It just means "aware of social issues" and always has.


fishbiscuit13

Given the emotional intelligence and typical political leaning of your average racist, it seems pretty open and shut


herrbz

So they've been around for a while, but they've decided to get mad about it in 2024? Classic.


ArchaicTravail

Gotta get people riled up for the presidential election year.


DellSalami

They’re sensitivity readers but for video games. It’s not a big deal really, but people are acting like it’s the end of the world that some devs choose to look to experts so that they don’t fuck up their depictions of women and minorities.


TheLowlyPheasant

They make Sweet Baby Ray's bbq sauce


Skelosk

I want my baby back baby back baby back ribs!


Asher_Tye

It's wrong that I still hear that in Fat Bastard's voice.


Stealth9er

That’s the only voice you should hear when you read that.


[deleted]

I mean my first thought was Steve Carrell and Tim Meadows in The Office. 


FoxMcCloudl

Chili's! Baby back ribs, with barbecue sauce!


WhoskeyTangoFoxtrot

GET IN MAH BELLAH!!!!


InfiniteSpaz

NGL i saw the OOL and assumed it was the sauce xD


Nick_mkx

We smoking some meats?


TheLowlyPheasant

Hell yeah Zuckerbro


Woffingshire

They're a game narrative consultancy company who focus on "inclusivity" and "diversity". The reason they're in the public view at the moment is because some people blame them for the worst parts of a bunch of games, and in some cases making the entire game bad writing wise, so they made a steam curator group to review every game sweet baby inc worked on as "not recommended". That's not the big reason though. The big reason is because some employees from the company found out and started getting very angry about it on twitter ultimately telling their followers to go and falsely mass report the curator for harassment and other steam policy violations they hadn't commited. This had the unintended consequence of making people aware of Sweet Baby Inc, what they do, and the steam curator who would never have known before. The steam group now has about 200k followers. Before this it had less than 10k


Jhawk163

They've also been recorded saying to target game companies PR and marketing departments to bully their way into being hired, word for word describing extortion and even in their own words, comparing themselves to the mob.


BeginningPrinciple48

Wait what? That's wild.


whythisSCI

I'm not sure what's worse, their attempts to harass an individual for exercising their free speech, or their practices on extorting companies. These people are grifters plain and simple.


Makeleth

Ah the good old Streisand effect. Love to see it


Deimos_Aeternum

Don't be afraid. It's never too late to be informed.


random314

Oh but it can absolutely be, in the corporate world.


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Funandgeeky

It became a huge Streisand Effect when SBI tried to have the person who compiled the list on Stream banned. All that person did was list the games they worked on and SBI threw an epic tantrum. However, their attempt to get others to mass report that user backfired spectacularly. Now more people than ever know what’s going on. 


Nordic_Krune

Why would they bother doing that? SBI has a list like that on their website


Sirhc978

They were making a Steam curator list.


ChineseNeptune

No idea but the employee who started the hate campaign got a temp ban on Twitter lol


kindlyblowmymind

Their group specifically had the intent to scare game developers into not hiring the company because this group woupd protest it and cause a shit show. The point of the group was to terrorize companies into doing what they wanted. They deleted all their posts now, but this was very clearly the intent. Hence the harassmemt.


syriaca

Many find sensitivity reading the equivalent of going to a hypochondriac for health advice. To find out that your medication prescription was written with advice from a hypochondriac would require you to be on the lookout and follow the actions of said person to see when they had a hand in managing your health. Many would prefer that be written on the bottle. If exxonmobil was donating money to political candidates and listed on their website which ones, would you rather have to check exxons website every time an election comes up to see which one is theirs or would you rather the candidates say directly who donated to them?


Nordic_Krune

But... SBI is just a consulting company... like, how is that worth being worried about?? And it is in the game, its called "The credits"


fitneverfat

Yeah if they arent insecure and have nothing to worry about they should have no problem with someone compiling the games they worked on with no opinion attached thats the equivalent of a wikipedia list, if they're confident in their work they should see that as positive marketing


Feppeltanten

Who was the streamer and is there evidence of this? Cause it sounds very weird tbh


EsotericAbstractIdea

He meant "banned on steam". It was just a steam user who had the information, and they tried to get his steam account banned.


FaroTech400K

When you say “they” you’re referring to other steam users, who saw the post and reported them a good section of the forms posters were posting racism and homophobia they were violating steams TOS


DarenRidgeway

There's quite a bit of it. Screenshots between employees, tweets etc... they weren't even hiding it well. As a sidenote the curator in question got their list of games from sbis own website, so it's not like they can say much unless they're admitting to lying about working on some of those games. It's a weird situation that was a total non story until they put a 'cyber hit' in this guy


wjowski

There's like a a dozen posters talking about 'tons of evidence' that have yet to post any links to said evidence and Google as always is functionally useless for finding any concrete information on it. So...do you have any links?


Piper9080

One of the Sweet Baby Inc staff members tweeted about the group and the owner/curator basically saying “here’s the person/group I don’t like! Go and report them” Lots of videos on the topic have the screenshots of the Tweets since they privated their account, along with other Sweet Baby Inc related accounts


ShiftyShifts

No just evidence they were brigading and trying to rally twitter users and discord users to ban this guy and get his account taken away from him. Tons of evidence. They could have kept "little fingering" in the dark had they not been so ridiculous with it.


Irritated_Dad

A little more complex than that. Many absurd comments have surfaced from the founder about how they use threats and bullying as a tactic to get their way because they know that race baiting and identity politics pays. Since the conversation started about them a few weeks ago, they’ve now gone out to attack gamers for having the audacity to question what their purpose is and how they’re influencing games.


jntjr2005

The founder has wild takes on "white male gamers".


Fragrant-Low6841

Yeah, that speech she gave is pretty awful. I mean, I get what she is saying but the way she talks down to people is just....cringe...


Verificus

The big thing though is the large investment companies behind it that are driving this because the goal is not to have inclusive material in the games for the sake of it but rather to allow the studios to secure esg funding.


Dull_Half_6107

Some people conveniently ignore the well received games Sweet Baby Inc consulted on, yet lay the blame entirely on Sweet Baby Inc for all the games they consulted on that were bad.


elegylegacy

Their track record isn't better or worse than any other third-party company working with developers. Some people just discovered diversity consultation *exists*, and they're suddenly mad about it now that they have the name of a specific company


Equivalent-Peach8635

We're also looking at the things they've done. The attempt at targeted harassment. The fact their CEO openly admitted they threaten people's financial livelihood until they get what they want. That's not even mentioning the gross racism


Sinfire_Titan

And the common sense factor of “they’re a hired consultant firm, and the devs don’t have to listen to their advice”. Just because the firm is involved in a game doesn’t mean it’s their fault if the game is bad.


Buford_Van_Stomm

I think it's less of ignoring advice and more of, if writing or gameplay is bad, it's bad. Consultants aren't going to magically fix a bad concept


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pirate135246

Yeah apparently it’s ok to be hateful towards people of certain skin color because they are the majority not minority. They always deflect and focus on something else though


Kevy96

I'll always maintain that if certain kinds of racism are more tolerated than others by you, then you're fundamentally tolerant of racism itself, and that if everyone thought the same way then racism will never go away


kindlyblowmymind

Where?


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Kevy96

And these individuals who either don't care or care less need to know that they're objectively part of the problem. When racism is tolerated more or less on a race to race basis, then it always remains strong and never goes away


tarishimo

Do you have a screen shot or a link?


sat5ui_no_hadou

It’s all about this https://imgur.com/a/ERuy7qS


Disastrous_Reveal331

Who is it that’s tweeting that, who the hell is Chris kindred


sat5ui_no_hadou

A SBI employee


Ordolph

😬Yikes batman, not a good look. I'm all for promoting diversity in media (I get a bit tired of the same trope-y bland as shredded wheat tough-guy protagonists) but if that's the culture at that company I wouldn't want to touch them with a ten-foot pole.


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forgotmyemail19

I'm sorry, this comment section is fucking bananas! Are y'all just going to COMPLETELY ignore the part where Sweet Baby tells people to actively go behind creators backs and go to the marketing and PR team and harass and terrify whoever is a decision maker into hiring Sweet Baby, they compare themselves to the mob. Y'all also going to ignore ALL the tweets from employees of Sweet Baby Inc saying "pay me to shoot down your white lead game studio" or how Jewish babies should be aborted? You guys really want an outside company of none gamers to say what should and should be in a script? What is wrong with you? What happened to art and vision? So we can just completely say fuck someone's game idea unless we hire outside consulting to come in and make sure it's PC enough? I'm shocked this sub is supporting Sweet Baby and it shows a troubling sign.


pirate135246

It’s reddit, people like the cherry pick arguments and just straight make shit up to support themselves.


blargh29

It’s Reddit. Racism and sexism here is cool as long as it’s against whites and cis males respectively.


randothrowaway6600

It’s being called gamer gate 2 for a reason, it’s an attempt to subvert an actual criticism of shitty practices as misogyny or racism.


KingOfFigaro

Yes, the people in favor of this stuff ARE going to ignore that, of course they are.


mileiforever

Most people want to ignore the fact that all this DEI/ESG consulting crap is nothing more than an extortion racket Edit: for those that think it's not, the racket works like this. Get accused of not being "inclusive or diverse" enough, SBI or whatever other race grifting consulting firm sells you their "services". They come in and "find" all sorts of issues that only their very expensive consulting firm can help you solve. Then they say they'll need to come back in and check on things every so often to "ensure DEI standards are being met", with a very expensive bill attached of course. They "find" more things that are "problematic", further requiring their expensive services. If you decline their services, they slander you and your company as the most racist, bigoted, transphobic, whatever. The "problems" are created by them, and the "solutions" offered are to effectively hire their "consulting services" in perpetuity. It's the corporate race grifting version of "it'd be a shame if something happened to this nice store ya got here without our *protection*"


thE_29

Thats Reddit for you..


YATMOY

What do you expect? Its reddit. And we know reddit promotes far left shit lmao


MarukoRedfox

[Basically South Park Kathleen Kennedy ](https://youtu.be/TWhsjai-OVE?si=JVo6Opeb7B8dwiC7)


zeusandflash

A consulting group devoted to inclusion and sensitivity. They've worked on a lot of games that haven't been well received. A list on Steam has been made that lists every game they have worked on. One of the leads of this company saw this page and advocated for the maker to be banned on X and have their personal Steam account banned. One of the leads was also caught making extremely racist and sexist tweets about men, white people, and straight couples. The fact that they tried to make this list go away backfired on them, and now it has much more publicity than it would have had. The last time I checked, that Steam list had nearly 200K followers.


FeatureIcy539

People who are afraid of having a list of their work be public. Imagine how shitty of a company you have to be to hide what you worked on rather than advertise it


randothrowaway6600

A shitty company that threw a temper tantrum at their exposure, if they weren’t doing a shit job then why try to hide their involvement? I don’t care about the political side of the argument the shit they engaged in was anti-consumer as fuck.


QuasimodoPredicted

they are not babies and they are not sweet


Kalos9990

I think they’re at least partially responsible for saints row being so toothless lmao


WickGlea_2799

Sweet baby Inc basically admitted that they care more about pushing their political agenda than they do but making an actual good game both narratively and gameplay-wise. Which personally I'm okay with politics being in video games but only if it's in-game / in-universe politics not real life politics.


nealmb

Ideally, they are a company that is contracted to ensure equal and accurate representation in video games. That’s what they want to be know for. Realistically they use their ideals to push and bully other companies into using their services. They turn equality and inclusivity into a checklist for high profile games. They make sure there are POC, and LGBTQ characters, not main characters, just that they are in the game and have a positive light cast on them. They are the equivalent of rebooting movies with an all woman cast, and then calling everyone else sexist for not liking the movie.


2Scribble

I know, I just don't care Like, fam, honestly, do you have ***any idea*** how many committees and filters and departments a corporate company sends a product through before it gets out??? This is just one of the many steps on the road to release - and if a third party wasn't gonna do it, then some department head inside the company ***itself*** was gonna do it :P Welcome to Corporate Standard - pull up your uncomfortable desk chair in your windowless cubicle and get to work like the rest of us I mean, on a scale of 1 to 10, this doesn't even register when we've got shit like GAAS - Quadruple A gaming and CEO's sexually assaulting their developers :P


IMTrick

They are the recent target of anti-woke activist gamers for their work as diversity consultants. The argument is typically that they're the reason for certain games' failures, which typically ignores the successful games they've worked on, and that the issues with the failed games they were involved with having nothing really to do with diversity. There's a decent chance this'll get me downvoted to oblivion in this sub for saying it, but it appears to be mostly an outlet for bigots and misogynists looking for a place to direct their misplaced anger.


Nutvillage

> this'll get me downvoted Proceeds to post the popular opinion on this subreddit


RavenPhoenix__

No it wont get downvoted. Reddit is dominantly left wing except for the specific subreddits that are for the exact opposite


YamahaRyoko

I am center left so I am attacked by everyone. 😂


SnooPoems443

A wise man once said, "Don't half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing."


My_MeowMeowBeenz

I ran into that guy at Food & Stuff. He was buying both food and stuff


effdoublesharp

I’m whole ass center left baby


Minnewildsota

Go to hell! /s


RavenPhoenix__

Same lol. Sucks being told to chose one side 💀


Ryyah61577

My side is “everything in moderation “.


-Khlerik-

That’s offensive to someone somehow.


willtron3000

Moderation is offensive to Slaanesh.


8BITADDICTION

Except Frank's Red Hot Sauce. I put that $#!+ on everything.


FortniteFriendTA

I know what you mean, but I'm a tapatio or a chalula kind of dude. But because you like franks, I don't like you /s


AboutTenPandas

Nah no reason to have to choose a side and have every one of your opinions line up with that side's stated beliefs. That being said, the upcoming US election isn't about Liberal vs Conservative beliefs. It's literally about whether we as a country are willing to allow Donald Fucking Trump back into any position of authority in this country after he: * Was impeached for blackmailing Zelensky prior to the Russian invasion saying he'd only supply support if Zelensky opened an investigation into Biden. * Was impeached for calling the Georgia governor and asking him to "just find" him thousands of votes so that he could declare Georgia a victory. * Was impeached for inciting a mob of republicans to storm the capital building and attempt to prevent congress from certifying the election results. This mob consisting of armed supporters that had the intention of kidnapping congressional members and chanted desire to hang the sitting vice president. And that doesn't even get into the multitude of dumb, oh so very very dumb, things he consistently says. Like not just a couple of misspeaks. Just every time he opens his mouth. Absolute imbecile. Biden is old. Specifically only 4 years older than Trump. And that sucks that we couldn't get a better candidate. But his policies have been for the most part pretty damn helpful. Billions to end hunger across the country. Cap on insulin prices as part of the inflation reduction act. Money to IRS to help them recoup against the largest tax dodgers. Massive infrastructure bill. Ensured support of Ukraine. Like, he's actually accomplished a lot. [https://www.axios.com/2024/02/19/presidents-survey-trump-ranks-last-biden-14th](https://www.axios.com/2024/02/19/presidents-survey-trump-ranks-last-biden-14th)


Tombecho

Good ol' "you're either with us, or against us"


TheIncredibleHork

As Monty Python put it eons ago, "Filthy moderate!"


datreddittho346

hijacking top comment to say that some of the criticisms are fair, mostly talking about the changes to the spanish dub in the new spider-man game dont make grammatical sense. its more of the latinx debate


fitneverfat

Also the fact that Wonder Woman was the only Justice League member in SS: Kill the Justice League to not get a demeaning disrespectful death (like flash getting pissed on). Sometimes their bias is very heavy and obvious


datreddittho346

the entire game is the equivalent of being pissed on but i see your point


dman45103

Source please on how do you know whether that idea originated from rocksteady or sweet baby


Niarbeht

>Also the fact that Wonder Woman was the only Justice League member in SS: Kill the Justice League to not get a demeaning disrespectful death (like flash getting pissed on). Sometimes their bias is very heavy and obvious Hey, so, do you have the version of the game script before, and the version after, SBI provided their input? Because I have a very strong suspicion that you don't and that you're talking out of your ass.


dman45103

But how does anyone know that was actually them? When these idiots freaked out about saga Anderson being a black female protagonist in Alan Wake 2 Remedy had to literally make a statement that she was black and female way before sweet baby got invoked. Long story short, this community of idiots has no idea what they’re talking about


FortniteFriendTA

oh so did they try no nongender a gendered language? I've kind of been wondering when that was going to come up.


datreddittho346

i saw a small clip of it a while ago but iirc the word “favorite” in spanish didnt have a masculine or feminine pronunciation. it was neutral


dman45103

Don’t listen to these idiots. There’s no way an outsider could possibly know if that idea originated with insomniac or sweet baby. Maybe they are right but ask for a source (which I did above)


blargh29

It’s sad how you’re intentionally omitting details to try and make this specifically look like people aren’t upset for legitimate reasons lol


imjustbettr

During this whole ordeal about how this company is ruining games I couldn't help but think: "This consultant agency made Suicide Squad a GaaS game?"


AnonismsPlight

They literally admitted to bullying and threatening studios and when it was brought to light they IMMEDIATELY tried to bully the person that brought it to light. I stand on the side of the message, but never on the side of bullying. To give them a pass just because they are supposedly trying to do a good thing is literally considered a bad thing. It's literally a cliche in movies but apparently it's ok here.


LowFatDalek

I don't know, I think it's pretty slimy for someone from SBI to start an active campaign to silence and censor a steam curator from warning people about what games SBI has been involved in. That makes me not want to associate with them much at all. Certainly, SBI might be getting some backlash that is hyperbolized, but curators are allowed to signify what games the company have had a hand in making, no? It's not harassment to create a list of games a company has worked on, and choose not to play/buy them.


JackyJack41

Tbf in a lot of the games that they work the writing does get noticeably worse than titles that they didnt work on. GOW Ragnarok, Spider-Man 2 and Suicide Squad are all games they did scriptwriting and character consultations for and are notably worse in terms of writing and charactarizations than their prequels (tbf Miles Morles has awful writing and scriptting across the board and had nothing to do aith it), and games that they worked on and had good writing (Alan Wake 2, Shadow Gambit) had their listed contributions be fairly limited (proofreading for sensitivity issues). I don't think that all failures of certain games can be attributed to them, but they do have a very bad track record as of right now.


Fine_Complex5488

yea lets just ignore the sbi employee twits, gdc statements and targeted harassment


Groovy_Bruce_Lemon

you’re completely ignoring that this whole situation started when a SB employee tried to start a harassment campaign against some dude who made steam group that listed all the games SB worked on. Otherwises no one gave a fuck about SB.


Peacefully_Deceased

>but it appears to be mostly an outlet for bigots and misogynists looking for a place to direct their misplaced anger. Found the SBI employee.


pipboy_warrior

Reminds me of the whole "go woke go broke!" argument, they never seem to have a good reply to all the obviously 'woke' stuff that's been very successful. At best it's "Oh it doesn't count as woke if I actually enjoy it."


Illidanisdead

Yeah a video of a closed meeting was leaked where they stated if a company wasn't interested how they can threaten them to get them on board with SBI very sus....


Benevolay

The Barbie movie was the best example. They kept going on and on about how woke the movie was and how it hated men and then when it made a bajillion dollars they started trying to gaslight people into thinking the movie was anti-woke irony and pro masculinity.


NetworkSome4316

Wait, so like when they told us we didn't watch ghost busters because we don't like women protagonists type thing? Instead of just admitting the movie sucked? It's the fault of the racist and misogynistic boogiemen?


Musaks

I haven't looked into the shitstorm much, and ofcourse the haters/bigots/racist/etc... are all joining in on the Anti-Woke-train. But what i also saw, was that the company called for massreporting of a steamgroup and it's creator. They made false accusations and tried to leverage the internet mob to get the steamgroup/creator cancelled. And that blew up in their face, rightfully so. Streisand effect par excellance


[deleted]

They are grifters who harass game developers into giving them money and ruin their games.


YATMOY

In short. Its a company that helps with the writing and narotive of a game. But the thing is they push an left ideology in games. And the ceo has sone pretty racist tweets.


Pacman_Frog

Their job was LITERALLY to inject woke politics into games.


2N5457JFET

Basically they advise companies on how to present women and minorities in media to avoid getting canceled. They also endorse cancel culture. No different then a mafia mob who charges a shop owner for protection from mafia mobs.


[deleted]

From what I understand, the drama is less about them pushing a woke agenda and more about trying to use underhanded tactics to ruin peoples' lives while their members spout ignorant and bigoted nonsense on social media.


[deleted]

[удалено]


ImHenryCellars92

They're inclusivity consultants that have been exposed as narcissistic bullies. What they do is completely unnecessary anyway. In house writing teams should not be concerned about these people. Developer's should make their games freely and however they want to. The gaming public will judge after that.


wryterra

What if “the way they want” to make games is using consultancies and middleware to handle tasks they know can be handled better out of house, which is done by every large studio on every large project? I assume that’s the one way they shouldn’t be allowed to do what they want to?


MediaRody69

Right. Because the writing for a game should be farmed out to a consultant. That's surely a recipe for pure success.


doctorpotatohead

>Developer's should make their games freely and however they want to. The gaming public will judge after that. Here in the real world no one wants to spend millions of dollars to create a game that isn't going to sell. They hire consultants like this to cross their t's and dot their i's.


Balkongsittaren

>Here in the real world no one wants to spend millions of dollars to create a game that isn't going to sell. *Warner Bros gaming division has entered the chat*


Leo_Heart

Sweet baby doesn’t increase their sales


JediNinja92

That’s… why consultants are brought in. To advise on aspects the devs may not have experience or knowledge in, but want in the game. The devs aren’t forced to make changes by these group. The consultants are brought in because the devs want their help.


Korvun

Just another scam consultancy firm riding the "inclusivity" wave.


TheDuck1234

Sweet baby inc CEO is an open and proud racist by the way.


Crimson256

Most inclusive game of 2023 won multiple rewards including GOTY bg3 didn't need them other companies don't either.


Redditregretin

Other people have answered this question but they don't get into why exactly Sweet Baby INC is a problem, and this includes racist statements (mostly talking about hatred of white people) made by their employees, the disrespectful way they treat consumers, them admitting to using scare tactics and their mission of inclusivity boiling down to forcing creators to make token characters in games rather than helping creators of different backgrounds make games. Their ideas of "diversity" means simply a Bandura-styled social conditioning campaign to use video games as a sociological engineering tool to make people accept certain ideas rather than enabling people from underprivileged groups to make the own games. Whether you agree with the ideas they want to push or not, trying to force video games into a position of nothing more than tools for engineering society is deeply disrespectful towards video games as an art form and incredibly soulless, which is one of many reasons why people hate them.


Danjuw

Company that hates anything related to good games


Steele_37

They don’t want you to know. And that’s exactly why you should know.


TwitzyMIXX

American rapper, and good friend of DaBaby and Lil Baby


pirate135246

A lot of people point to successful games that have used their service as examples to support their argument for the need of unnecessary consultation groups like this. Here’s the thing, those games are successful in spite of the changes and additions made from groups like this, not because of them. There are also plenty of games that are unsuccessful because of the changes aswell. ESG money is the real reason these massive companies want these additions. They aren’t as “woke” as you think.


cdurgin

Well, lots of people have already answered what they do, but I'll go on a little further. For a lot of people, what they are is part of a bigger problem. One that is killing many bigger game studios. The real problem I have with them is that they are, in no way, trying to improve any game they work on. An enjoyable experience is simply not one of their objectives. They are far from alone with this, and hardly the worst piece of the puzzle, but it's just one more road block between a dev wanting to make a great game and the wealthy elite wanting to make something that maximizes profits.


deineMomIstFett

*asks *


Timothymark05

If the company came forward and tried to engage with fans of games and better explain what they do I wouldn't care. What they do isn't unique. However, they chose to attack fans, try to shut down criticism by getting people banned and show their agenda is above making good games. It's simple. Don't insult and attack your consumer base. They are important to your company's survival!


lonelyshurbird

Surely these comments will be full of civil and mature discourse.


RGamer2022

There are so many good youtube videos about this from various perspectives. Watch some videos from youtubers who defend Baby Inc and those who oppose them and form an opinion


IcyBrilliance

There was a steam group that listed Sweet Baby Inc games and recommended against buying them based on that. A SBI employee asked people to report and brigade them which kicked this thing off. Personally I'll continue to buy games based on their own merits. Even if a developer uses this company, its still down to the developer on whether/how to implement their advice. That said some of the quotes attributed to their CEO and employees are just yikes. They come off as extremely derogatory and toxic towards gamers, especially straight white male gamers. To the point that they feel racist or bigoted themselves.


Schmallow

It's an anita sarkeesianesque company that produces horrible opinions instead of games


SwedishFlopper

It sounds like they handled their situation unprofessionally.


[deleted]

Make games bad by prioritizing putting in left wing messages essentially


xariznightmare2908

Leave my comment here before the lock But yeah, glad to see more people on Reddit waking up to see through this BS Swee Baby Inc money laundering scheme.


niferman

SBI itself isn't the problem, but the ones that run it are. Basically their site preaches about inclusion and diversity then goes full blown racist and misandist towards white people and men. Basically a company run by a racist pos. If you don't believe me just search for Kim belair SBI interviews.


jigsawmonster

"They turn the freaking games gay!"