Sweet Baby Inc controversy: A return of Gamergate?
Organisation under fire over their hidden agenda of making games political/woke
Alan Wake II, Spiderman 2, God of War Ragnarök, and Sable are some of the notable projects that the narrative and consultation studio Sweet Baby Inc has worked on since its founding in 2018. A cursory look at the list tells you that for an organisation that is around six years old, that is a commendable roster of projects/titles to be a part of.
While their expertise lies in aspects such as narrative development, character design trajectories and arcs, and elements of diversity and representation, it is surprising that the organisation is being targeted by players who seem to have uncovered their hidden agenda of making games political/woke.
As game-makers from around the world have dubbed this moment ‘Gamergate 2.0,’ I can’t understand what the organisation has done wrong. In a time where global gaming organisations are shedding employees by the cartloads, here is an organisation championing diversity and plurality in a bid to make the medium more global and representative, yet the community is willing to conduct a witch hunt?
A cursory search for Sweet Baby Inc. on Google yields in its top five results, a Steam curation page whose only supposed function is to identify games the company has consulted on and flag them as “not recommended.”
This list includes games such as Assassins Creed Valhalla, The Crew Motorfest, and Gotham Knights and I can’t help but wonder: what purpose does boycotting a game that is supposed to offer players moments of joy and pleasure serve? Who does this form of cancel culture benefit when it undermines game makers, players, and the industry at large? How are video games to be considered a democratic and globally accessible form if we threaten people among us who champion diversity and inclusion?
One of the largest pursuits of the video game industry has been to shed the popular stereotype of video games being a medium of refuge for ‘young white teenagers of privilege, playing video games in their basements, secluded from the rest of the world.’ Here, in not taking a stand against the backers of the witch hunt against Sweet Baby Inc., we are undoing years of progress in one swift motion. We did the same when we refused to take a stand when misogynists questioned the accuracy of Abby’s body in The Last of Us II.
In monetary terms, because that is where the crux of the attack against Sweet Bay Inc lies, Spider-man II is a much better game due to the African American and Puerto Rican heritage of Miles Morales. The game shines when it highlights jazz and African American music cultures and, in the process, becomes much more than an action game. It represents modern-day New York and serves both as a site of learning and being.
How are you expected to survive if you don’t serve your largest markets? How are you expected to grow if you serve the same market over and over again over the fear of cancellation? This isn’t Gamergate 2.0; this is an industry-wide suicide out of close-mindedness.
