The consulting firm Sweet Baby Inc., known for its strong focus on diversity and inclusivity in game design, has recently simplified its website, removing the “clients” section that previously listed the games it had contributed to.
It feels like much longer than a year since we first spotlighted the consulting services of Sweet Baby Inc., a Black-and-queer-owned narrative development company. Although initially under the radar, the company soon gained widespread attention among gamers, but for the wrong reasons.
A few months after our coverage, one of its now former employees, Chris Kindred, initiated a cancel campaign against a Steam curation list which left negative reviews for games developed in collaboration with Sweet Baby Inc., sparking significant backlash within the gaming community.
The failed harassment campaign targeting gamers set the stage for what some have called a second Gamergate. Various media outlets, and even Homeland Security for reasons unclear, scrambled to defend Sweet Baby Inc., painting the narrative consulting company as the victim of a racist harassment campaign.
This, despite the company’s involvement in several high-profile commercial failures. These outlets downplayed key facts, alerting consumers to their bias.
In the aftermath, it became apparent that co-founder Kim Belair’s broader agenda for the gaming industry was being scrutinized, with critics claiming her aim is to reshape and dismantle key aspects of the industry. For the sake of diversity and inclusivity of course.
Kim Belair has publicly stated that she used fear tactics to pressure marketing teams, warning them that certain products would face negative reception and potentially spark a media backlash if Ubisoft’s internal developers didn’t align with her vision for racial inclusivity in their games.
The consulting firm largely operates as a proxy for BlackRock, implementing ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) and DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) mandates designed to appeal to hedge fund investors who prioritize ESG scores for corporate investments.
This approach has disrupted authentic representation and stifled creativity in the gaming industry. Sweet Baby Inc. has been at the center of numerous scandals and financial disasters, with accusations of coercing Chinese developer Game Science into paying millions for consulting services on their game Black Myth: Wukong.
After supposedly declining their consultancy, IGN came out with claims that the developers were sexist, sparking controversy. Meanwhile, feminist game developer Mary Kenney, formerly of Insomniac Games, downplayed the influence of such consultancy firms, despite the fact that many AAA developers prominently feature ESG on their websites and increasingly incorporate political themes and LGBTQ+ representation in their games.
Amid growing backlash against ESG and DEI initiatives in gaming, Sweet Baby Inc. has remained mostly silent on social media since the start of the year. Their website, once used to promote future projects and collaborations, including the commercially unsuccessful Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn and Tales of Kenzera: ZAU, the latter developed by a former business partner of Kim Belair.
Despite its simple design, featuring inclusive and neutral pastel tones, Sweet Baby Inc.’s website prominently highlighted the services they offer, boasting about how their team of “marginalized writers” could help reshape the industry. The site also proudly showcased the companies they’ve worked with, despite the ongoing controversies and criticism surrounding their involvement in recent game development projects.
If you visit the Sweet Baby Inc. website today, you’ll notice some significant changes. The company has removed the section that previously showcased its partners and the logos of the companies it worked with.
The site now features a much simpler design, offering only brief details about a handful of projects and services. It selectively highlights a few large scale titles they’ve collaborated on that haven’t been total commercial failures, including Alan Wake 2, which still hasn’t recouped its development costs as well as Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and God of War Ragnarok.
The removal of information about past projects may be an effort by Sweet Baby Inc. to distance itself from unsuccessful games and mitigate its negative image among gamers. Despite ongoing criticism, Ubisoft continues to collaborate with the company on projects like the upcoming Assassin’s Creed: Shadows, though there has been no official announcement of their partnership.
This likely stems from the growing reluctance of game companies to publicly associate with Sweet Baby Inc., fearing consumer backlash an indicator of just how “valued” and “wanted” such consulting firms have become in the current climate.
Previously, Sweet Baby Inc. proudly listed an extensive client roster that included prominent names in the gaming industry such as Xbox Game Studios, Electronic Arts, Valve, Tru Luv, Santa Monica Studio, 2K, Ubisoft, Square Enix, Warner Bros. Games, Finji, Polytron, Rocksteady, KO_OP, Shedworks, Compulsion Games, Metric Empire, Chance Agency, Avalanche Studio Group, Deck Nine, Brass Lion Entertainment, Wizards of the Coast, People Can Fly, Eko Software, JuVee Productions, Glitch Games, Remedy, Panic, Raw Fury, and Fellow Traveler.
Despite rumors that Square Enix has ended its partnership with Sweet Baby Inc., the consultancy continues to omit specific brands from its website, likely due to the growing backlash associated with its name.
While Square Enix remains committed to producing safe (and censored) content, Sweet Baby Inc. seems to focus only on select projects, likely to avoid further controversy.
The curation group that former employee Chris Kindred once tried to silence has now grown to over 440,000 members, and any game or company visibly collaborating with Sweet Baby Inc. faces negative reception, with many consumers outright boycotting these titles.
The company now describes itself as an award-winning team of writers and narrative designers, boasting involvement in over 30 shipped games across AAA, indie, and solo developers.
They emphasize that they are “not just contractors – we are storytellers who can take your project to the next level.” One such project is Alan Wake 2, a title that has drawn attention for its mid development choice to racially swap the character of Saga Anderson after following narrative guidance from Sweet Baby Inc.
Similarly, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 has been criticized for being overly “woke” due to its inclusion of LGBT side missions, diverse characters, and even the use of the gender-neutral “Latinx” dialect of the Spanish language, a westernized concept that offends Latin Americans.
Is Sweet Baby Inc. concerned about the backlash? The answer seems to be both yes and no. In a recent interview with Black Girl Gamers on YouTube, Kim Belair claimed that business was proceeding as usual for the company.
The company faced significant backlash for pushing a fabricated samurai background for Yasuke, a historically minor figure, in Assassin’s Creed Shadows, a game set in feudal Japan featuring a fictional Black samurai based upon a real life figure.
Parrish, who is African-American contended that the resulting criticism ignores the “deep-rooted racism” within Japanese society. This controversy further exacerbated the ongoing tensions surrounding Sweet Baby Inc.’s involvement in contemporary game development.
Business continues as usual for Sweet Baby Inc.; they are still being contracted, and the games they collaborate on consistently release as commercial failures. Studios are either going bankrupt or laying off staff due to these “unexpected” setbacks in the market.
Merely updating their website to remove associations with these companies does little to change the situation, as all dealings with Sweet Baby Inc. and other consulting firms are now conducted behind closed doors, with companies establishing their own internal DEI enforcement divisions.
The only notable achievement of Sweet Baby Inc. has been to raise consumer awareness that modern game development has been largely infiltrated by woke ideology, which is being pushed and mandated by progressive feminist developers. This also exposes the collusion between these developers and the gaming journalists who support them.
Coincidentally, another game developed in collaboration with Sweet Baby Inc., titled Unknown 9: Awakening, is set to release this week. Featuring a racially diverse female character whose design is immensely unattractive, the game is almost certain to flop.
Sweet Baby Inc. has established itself as a “kiss of death” for modern gaming, having already contributed to the downfall of studios like Volition, the creators of the Saints Row reboot, and Luminous Productions, known for Forspoken, both of which have gone defunct due to their commercial failures.
While this revelation ultimately changes nothing, it is amusing to see Sweet Baby Inc. attempt to act coy about the situation, highlighting the few “accolades” they possess while conveniently omitting the names of the companies they’ve collaborated with, both now and in the past.
