Do you know Sweet Baby Ink? The consulting company has been accused of “distorting” major video game productions such as God of War Ragnarok, Alan Wake 2 or Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.
According to some Internet users, in recent days, one and only one company has been responsible for the “vocalization” of major video game productions. Sweet Baby Inc., a consulting company for storytelling in video games, is said to have participated in the development. By Alan Wake 2, Lord of War RagnarokOr Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.
According to these internet users, the company may have forced developers to integrate more inclusivity into their games, and specifically forced the integration of black characters, such as the protagonist.Alan Wake 2, Anderson Saga. A theory was directly refuted by the director of the widely awarded game at the end of year 2023 ceremonies.
The company’s employees have been the subject of harassment for several days due to panic among some Internet users, reminiscent of the Gamergate incident highlighted by the media. Kotaku who were able to investigate the matter.
Discord server and masculine steam group
This movement takes mainly two forms at the moment. On the one hand the Steam group “ Discovered Sweet Baby Inc » which purports to list the games on which Sweet Baby Inc. may have been consulted, linking it to calls for boycotts of the respective games. The group was created on January 30 and has 76,000 members at the time of writing. On the other hand, there is also a Discord server with the same name which has thousands of members and is growing rapidly. We were able to register the latter to read part of the conversation.
“These wokist consulting firms are ruining video games” // Source: Frandroid Capture
I HATE THAT THE MODERN REPRESENTATION OF RACIAL PEOPLE IS OF THE RANGE OF “BLACK PEOPLE ARE AS GOOD AS WHITE PEOPLE” // SOURCE: Capture Friendroid
“They don’t take the time to make normal looking women” // Source: Frandroid Capture
Within minutes of being on the server, we were able to see messages of a transphobic, racist or misogynistic nature. Members also share images or GIFs of similar people. One person showed a picture of a person hanging and dressed in the colors of the transgender flag.
Discord’s structure is relatively simple, with few discussion channels and not allowing most members to write freely. We’ve still got a channel dedicated to political debate, which has been deleted at least once in its history. Erase the swastika “
Gamergate 2.0
After the first ambition to take on a consulting company and direct the debate on narrative in high-budget video games, the community seems to have quickly regrouped around other debates. Some messages evoke the server as a reincarnation of the Gamergate movement, an American movement of the mid-2010s that combined anti-inclusion and anti-press demands under the guise of seeking better ethics in the video game press. We also see distrust of the press and hatred of the media on the Discord server Kotaku.
Several messages emerge in parallel with this rebirth of the GamerGate movement in the particular year we find ourselves. This is primarily an American server and the year 2024 should be the year of presidential elections in the United States. There are many messages that are favorable to the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement or Donald Trump.
What does Sweet Baby Inc actually do?
media Kotaku So Sweet Baby was able to take an interest in the nature of Inc’s work. This storytelling consulting company actually offers dialogue writing help, but it’s not an inclusion, diversity, and equality consulting firm. Sweet Baby Inc’s work on the game Suicide Squad, for example, simply “wrote” bark », this very short line of dialogue written for unimportant characters, usually anonymous (“Hello stranger!” “Welcome to our town!”). The company may also be responsible for verifying the relevance and authenticity of the game’s dialogues, especially so that they are appropriate and respectful of different cultures. The company’s boss, Kim Bellaire, explains it well to Kotaku’s Alyssa Merchant.
Sweet Baby is, at its core, a narrative development company. This ranges from screenwriting to narrative design, narrative direction and story revision. We also offer cultural consultation or authorization consultation. For us, this usually means that we might be asked to review a story if there’s a character who’s been marginalized in some way, and (the studio) wants us to pair them with a consultant who can provide insight. . A bit of authenticity… but the goal is never that we reach out and introduce diversity… most of the time, it’s the opposite. It is a company that has created a character and wants to make it more representative and more interesting.
So we understand that it is the studio that makes the original choices on the characters. Sweet Baby then provides proofreading and advice on this writing to improve the quality of dialogues. We also understand why most related games are big productions: it’s extra finishing work that can require a significant budget, especially for a game with lots of dialogue and characters.
As indicated Kotaku, the confusion surrounding Sweet Baby Inc’s work also draws its energy from players’ ignorance of how video games are created and developed. Many controversies in recent years, such as the question of downgrading or reusing animations from one game to another, have also been fueled by this ignorance. As a result, the industry is still very secretive about its operations.
