A Quebec company, Sweet Baby Inc specializes in helping with the development of video games to make the stories more inclusive. The company has become the target of the far right.
God of War Ragnarök, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Alan Wake 2 and lately Concord all have one thing in common: not the obvious one of being video games, but they all received more or less active help from Sweet Baby Inc.
This Quebec company was created in 2018 at the instigation of two former Ubisoft developers, Kim Belair and David Bédard. The duo's ambition is to make video games more inclusive and diverse, and to make them in tune with the times. Sweet Baby Inc has nevertheless been in the sights of the right and the far right for several months, as well as the most radical players, who accuse it of all the ills currently affecting the industry.
Emphasize “qualities” not “problems”
For this contested community, the thunderous failure of Concordwhich cost Sony more than 200 million dollars, and which closed its doors after only two weeks – dragging down its studio, Firewalk -, is proof that the advice provided by the company is not good and are synonymous with commercial or critical ovens.
Over the years, Sweet Baby Inc has actually taken part in the writing of large-scale game scenarios as well as more confidential titles. This sometimes involves helping to write characters, for example with the aim of making the writing more inclusive, or even integrating homosexual, bisexual, non-binary or trans characters.
On games including, for example, characters who are fluid with their sexuality or who are not defined by their original sex, the studio provides knowledge for the dialogues (with “iels”) or in the identification of a protagonist without misgendering it. On Assassin’s Creed ValhallaSweet Baby Inc worked with the Ubisoft Montreal teams to better integrate the possibility of a homosexual relationship between the hero or heroine and a character from the game into the history and era of the Vikings.
“We approach sensitivity by working on your story and existing documentation to bring out its natural authenticity and emotional resonance. We don't look for problems, we highlight what's good,” writes Sweet Baby Inc on its official website.
If at first, the processes of Sweet Baby Inc are rarely reported by players, the situation becomes explosive when users of 4Chan, the forum populated by conspiracists and masculinists, alongside extremist sub-Reddits, take over of the subject.
It is in particular Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice Leaguedeveloped by Rocksteady, which will truly light the fuse. The game, designed as a “service game” with seasons, found neither critical nor commercial success.
But rather than questioning the hazardous choices of its publisher Warner, part of the public prefers to point the finger at Sweet Baby Inc, so the role in the title was to write scenarios for some of the non-playable characters and helped to the recording of certain dubbing, not to bring an additional touch of inclusiveness that the developers had already decided long ago.
“Hallucinations created by scammers”
There is no reason to believe that the company is responsible for the title's failure. Information confirmed by Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier, who was able to speak with some Rocksteady developers: “I asked dozens of people who worked on the game what went wrong, and not a single one did not mention Sweet Baby Inc.”
For him, a fringe of players “pursues angry fantasies created by crooks.” The latter using the anger of players in the face of unwise choices by publishers to chain together false information and defamatory accusations.
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The leader of this movement, Mark Kern, also known under the pseudonym Grummz, is a former manager of Blizzard (until 2005) and became known for supporting Gamergate – leading to cyberharassment against women players or developers.
The players most involved in this fight seek to eradicate any form of “wokism”, this word that the far right has appropriated, but also Elon Musk, and which concerns all subjects linked to inclusiveness or LEFT. Together, they notably made a list of games that Sweet Baby Inc has taken care of, but not only that. In this court of miracles, we can for example see mention of games which underwent modifications during the release in the West, such as Dragon Questor even titles that have only been mentioned by Sweet Baby Inc in a newsletter, such as Tales of Kenzera: Zau. Objective: “review bombing”, bad ratings from players who have not touched the games. Valve's passivity towards this curation group had also been denounced by the developers concerned.
But if Sweet Baby Inc is responsible for the industry's failures, the players who accuse them nevertheless carefully avoid talking about the successes. Because the company has also provided help to studios which have experienced real successes, such as Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Alan Wake 2 or even God of War Ragnarök.
Death threats against the studios
Worse, sometimes ideas for inclusivity just don't come from Sweet Baby Inc. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 was, for example, entitled to its accusations, when characters displayed a rainbow flag in the streets of New York. But this choice was not made by Sweet Baby Inc, which confirmed that it had simply worked to improve the story, without taking responsibility for its inclusiveness. On several occasions, its co-founder Kim Belair explained that her company did not practice any censorship and did not have the power to do so anyway.
Furthermore, the company is sometimes singled out for projects on which it did not work. Lately it's Dragon Age: The Veilguardone of whose characters is non-binary and questions his gender, which led to far-right vindictiveness like Sweet Baby Inc despite his lack of involvement.
The vehemence of Gamergate supporters has also given rise to death threats against Sweet Baby Inc, but also the developers of the studios collaborating with them.
Wanting to find a culprit for certain failures or the current situation of video games, with its numerous layoffs, some of the most extreme players have therefore chosen Sweet Baby Inc
The company did not wish to respond to Tech&Co. Under cover of anonymity, we are nevertheless told that the current debates are taken very seriously, particularly on the judicial level.
