Remember how Bandai Namco recently scrapped several game projects, allegedly tied to popular Japanese franchises like Naruto and One Piece, along with an undisclosed title commissioned by Nintendo?
Now, their latest venture, a fully Western creation penned by Kim Belair, co-founder of the consultancy firm Sweet Baby Inc., appears to have cost the company untold millions.
Unknown 9: Awakening, developed by Reflector Entertainment and published by Bandai Namco, is already shaping up to be a financial disaster, peaking at just 169 concurrent players, according to SteamDB.
Bandai Namco is one of several large Japanese corporations that have faced criticism for adopting Western ideologically-driven inclusivity guidelines, influenced by major investment firms like BlackRock. In 2016, Bandai Namco set out to expand its Western development capabilities with the goal of creating 50% of its content outside Japan.
In September 2020, Bandai Namco acquired Montreal-based Reflector Entertainment, along with its subsidiary Reflector Interactive. Together, they aimed to build an expansive cinematic universe around Unknown 9, spanning video games, comic books, novels, and more.
The core issue, however, lies in modern gaming’s growing focus on political correctness, prioritizing racial inclusivity over pure entertainment.
As video games increasingly serve as vehicles for pushing agendas and ideology rather than offering escapism, Unknown 9: Awakening faced an uphill battle. Many modern consumers have grown weary of what they see as forced inclusivity, centered on “marginalized” groups and races, often portrayed in ways that feel artificial or unappealing.
Unknown 9: Awakening introduces a heavily inclusive protagonist, Haroona, of Indian descent, whose thick accent may come off as off-putting. The game follows a generic, story-driven action formula with elements of magic and revenge.
Throughout the narrative, players will notice that Haroona’s friends and allies are also diverse, racially inclusive characters, while the main antagonist, Vincent Lichter, is one of the few White characters and a member of the Ascendants, the group responsible for Haroona’s father’s death.
Upon closer inspection, it’s clear why Unknown 9: Awakening, developed by a relatively unknown Canadian studio over four years leans so heavily into inclusivity, which may contribute to its narrative shortcomings and lack of consumer interest.
Bandai Namco, the game’s publisher and Reflector Entertainment’s owner, has publicly committed to DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) initiatives and are literally paying the price for it.
However, the deeper influence likely comes from Sweet Baby Inc.’s CEO, Kim Belair, whose consultancy firm has been at the forefront of injecting “woke” ideological content into the games they’ve worked on, shockingly Unknown 9: Awakening is her personal passion project.
Sweet Baby Inc. co-founders David Bédard and Kim Belair were credited in Unknown 9: Awakening‘s entry for The Shorty Awards, with Kim Belair notably listed as “story architect,” a title that essentially means lead writer.
This game was her brainchild, but it has turned into a costly failure for Bandai Namco, burning through tens of millions of dollars if not exceeding upwards of a hundred million when accounting for the acquisition of Reflector.
The situation highlights the close-knit and ideologically intertwined nature of the modern Western gaming industry. Before launching Sweet Baby Inc., both Belair and Bédard worked at Ubisoft’s Montreal studio, with Bédard later joining Reflector Entertainment as Brand Content Manager from April 2018 to March 2019, before co-founding Sweet Baby Inc. with Belair.
Belair is notorious for injecting leftist ideology and pandering into the games curated by her consultancy firm, which has led to widespread dissatisfaction. Modern games increasingly feature racially diverse female protagonists and LGBT themes, trends that many associate with Sweet Baby Inc.’s influence.
The firm has faced several controversies, including one involving employee Chris Kindred, who led a cancel campaign against a Steam curation group for posting public information from Sweet Baby Inc.’s website. Additionally, the firm has been accused of race-swapping characters in high-profile games like God of War Ragnarok, Alan Wake 2, and South of Midnight.
Sweet Baby Inc. has become a notorious presence in the gaming industry, often referred to as a “death kiss” for the titles they’ve been involved in. As the company’s prominence has grown, so too has consumer frustration with the perceived imposition of woke ideology in the games they’ve consulted on.
Many of these projects have been among the industry’s most significant commercial failures.
Alan Wake 2, for example, has yet to break even a year after its release. Meanwhile, smaller indie titles associated with Sweet Baby Inc. or its founder Kim Belair such as Goodbye Volcano High, Tales of Kenzera: ZAU, and Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn have similarly flopped, barely managing to attract hundreds of players on Steam.
Higher-profile commercial failures linked to Sweet Baby Inc. include Volition’s Saints Row reboot, a modernized version of the violent gangster franchise that featured an inclusive cast of millennials and was marred by censorship. The reboot bombed so spectacularly that it led to Volition’s shutdown.
This year, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League brought Warner Bros. a staggering $200 million loss. The live-service, politically correct title meant to be part of Rocksteady’s famed Arkhamverse, peaked at just 13,450 concurrent players on PC before losing over 90% of that within weeks.
Despite updates, including a feminized, ambiguous Joker, a gender-swapped fat lesbian version of Mr. Freeze, and a race-swapped Zoe Lawton, the game now only manages around 100 peak daily players.
Square Enix’s Forspoken, another title similar to Unknown 9: Awakening in being a mundane third-person action game featuring a marginalized protagonist, also struggled.
The collaboration between its developer Luminous Productions and Sweet Baby Inc. led to the game’s commercial failure, forcing Luminous Productions to shut down. Meanwhile, studios like Rocksteady continue to double down on woke ideology, focusing on DEI and ESG initiatives, even while laying off employees amidst their financial struggles.
Kim Belair, the “story architect” behind Unknown 9: Awakening, openly admitted to using fear tactics during her time at Ubisoft to push for more inclusive game development. She reportedly pressured the company’s marketing department, warning that if certain aspects of the games weren’t changed, they could be labeled as racist, offensive, and could trigger a media backlash.
Given Belair’s notorious reputation and the controversies surrounding her consultancy firm, Sweet Baby Inc., it’s no surprise that many in the gaming community are celebrating the commercial failure of her pet project.
Unknown 9: Awakening‘s poor reception is seen as a reflection of industry missteps in prioritizing BlackRock’s ESG and DEI initiatives for corporate investment over creating politically-neutral entertainment that resonates with wider audiences.
This failure could very well be another blow to a company distracted by ideology rather than focusing on engaging, enjoyable content.
In the end, Unknown 9: Awakening looks and feels like a forgettable AA flick from multiple generations ago set to join the growing list of Sweet Baby Inc influenced games that failed to resonate with both players and critics.
Despite its story-driven narrative, penned by Kim Belair herself, the game’s lackluster execution and absence of innovation will ensure it remains nothing more than a minor footnote, only to be remembered for its failure and its association with Belair and Sweet Baby Inc.
Unknown 9 is hardly the title to change anyone’s opinion about Sweet Baby Inc. In today’s gaming landscape, where development costs have soared and most AAA games need to sell millions of copies to break even, a mediocre action game focused on elevating marginalized characters as its main appeal simply won’t cut it. There’s little sympathy for Kim Belair or Bandai Namco, who willingly subjected themselves to ridicule and financial turmoil by embracing Western ideologies and corporate financing.
Bandai Namco had high hopes when they purchased Reflector Entertainment, the studio behind Unknown 9: Awakening, aiming for the game to launch a franchise to rival cultural giants like Star Wars, much like Sony’s aspirations with Concord.
It’s unclear exactly how much Bandai Namco poured into acquiring Reflector, but with the game spending over four years in development, the budget likely neared $100 million, even with a smaller team.
Unfortunately for Bandai, their gamble failed catastrophically, and it seems likely that Reflector will be dissolved in the coming months, putting an end to the proposed Unknown 9 cinematic universe, which included plans for comic books and novels.
Given this monumental failure, it’s no wonder Bandai Namco is reportedly pushing its native Japanese employees to resign voluntarily, as the company struggles to recover from its financial blunders, at the very least they didn’t spend a dime actually marketing this pile of shit.
