Another game release made in collaboration with Sweet Baby Inc, another resounding failure that’ll surely result in future layoffs. It’s poetic.
The video game industry is certainly in a precarious position, with so many games releasing to resounding failures on the open market with the massive connective tie between them all being just one single consultation company.
We laughed and mocked the failure that was Tales of Kenzera: ZAU from developers Surgent Studios, founded by the mysterious Abubakar Salim, a man who had previously established a company with not one but both co-founders of Sweet Baby Inc prior to releasing his game which had only managed to accumulate 287 concurrent players upon release.
Previous failures released over the past handful of years include Alan Wake 2, Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League alongside Volition’s Saints Row Reboot and Luminious Production’s Forspoken. With the latter two titles resulting in those studios being closed down.
The connective link between all of these games is Sweet Baby Inc, who quite literally started a second coming of Gamergate by exposing a media collusion to uphold woke narratives and forced diversity in the video game industry as one of their employees attempted to incite a cancel campaign against a gamer for creating the “SBI Detected” list on Steam, a list of publicly available information that compiles video games on the Steam storefront made in collaboration with this particular company.
The small Canadian firm, Sweet Baby Inc, has gained significant attention for its controversial involvement in video game development. Their attempts at damage control have only highlighted the patterns noticed by critics who identify indoctrinated themes in games they are credited with.
Despite their involvement in high-profile titles such as Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and God of War Ragnarok, these games faced criticism for their story narratives. Sweet Baby Inc’s primary role is to consult with developers, offering “suggestions” on narrative and character design.
Sweet Baby Inc inadvertently exposed a collusion among gaming journalists who defended their practices, with some even claiming that it is impossible to be racist towards white people after one of their employees attempted to incite a cancel campaign against an individual for constructing a Steam curation list that can either recommend or not recommend a particular product.
This list compiled publicly available information and assigned negative ratings to video games developed in collaboration with Sweet Baby Inc. It raised eyebrows when a Sweet Baby Inc employee labeled it as targeted harassment, simply for naming the games they had worked on.
The situation escalated to the point where Homeland Security got involved, as the controversy surrounding consultation firms like SBI and the infusion of diverse character designs in modern games gained massive traction.
The “Sweet Baby Inc Detected” Steam curation group now boasts 415,519 users, reflecting widespread concern over the influence of such consultation firms on the gaming industry.
Sweet Baby Inc is a narrative consultation company that helps game developers create authentic storylines that are sensitive to marginalized groups and ethnicities while promoting cultural representation and diversity. Their goal is to guide game corporations in meeting various ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) criteria.
However, their employees have faced criticism for making past discriminatory tweets that targeted White people and Jews.
The result of their character design and narrative curation often feels forced and insincere to players. Many games appear to be driven by an agenda, featuring heavy-handed messages and abundant homosexual representation.
Modern games, focused on diversity and inclusivity, frequently include unoriginal and unflattering stereotypes of Black characters, created with little to no imagination.
Consumers have noticed media outlets defending Sweet Baby Inc, often downplaying the company’s influence on game development, particularly regarding diversity and representation.
Co-founder Kim Belair has openly admitted to using scare tactics at her previous employer, Ubisoft, by pressuring the marketing team to push for changes she deemed necessary. If the marketing team considered something racist or offensive, developers were compelled to alter it.
Recent instances of race swapping in games made in collaboration with Sweet Baby Inc have further fueled controversy. For example, Alan Wake 2 has yet to recoup its development costs, and the game controversially changed the character Saga Anderson from a White Swedish woman to a Black woman.
God of War Ragnarök faced criticism for its portrayals of Thor as an unattractive, overweight man and Angrboda as a Black woman.
Finally, we have Compulsion Games, which has race-swapped the protagonist of their upcoming release, South of Midnight, from White to Black after being compelled by Microsoft to contract Sweet Baby Inc.
Additionally, Sweet Baby Inc allegedly tried to charge Chinese developers Game Science $7 million for consultation services on their game Black Myth: Wukong. The Chinese developers declined, leading to negative coverage by gaming journalists over unverified allegations of sexism within their company.
Consumers are increasingly aware of Sweet Baby Inc’s influence and perceive modern games as poorly made products by activists who hate their audience. Journalists have exacerbated the situation by labeling consumers as bigots and racists for not purchasing these games, further fueling discontent.
The latest game developed in conjunction with Sweet Baby Inc, Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn, has released to an underwhelming silence.
Developed by A44 Games and published by Kepler Interactive, Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn was added to the “Sweet Baby Inc detected” list back in March.
This followed an article in Edge magazine, which revealed that Kim Belair, co-founder of Sweet Baby Inc, had been brought on to introduce “new and exciting ideas” during its development.
Game journalists have been promoting Flintlock as what Forspoken should have been. Forspoken, another game involving Sweet Baby Inc, flopped due to its cringe-worthy dialogue, unlikeable and unattractive Black female protagonist, and poor story design.
The failure of Forspoken was so significant that it led to the closure of its developer and incurred substantial financial losses for Square Enix.
Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn is a third-person action-RPG featuring yet another unattractive Black female protagonist. IGN, in particular, received special favor, gaining an exclusive 20 minutes of gameplay footage, which they uploaded on June 28th.
Despite my initial aversion to the protagonist, I approached Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn with an open mind. However, my concerns were quickly validated. Developed on Unreal Engine, the game suffers from poor optimization, leading to inconsistent frame times and severe stuttering during gameplay.
Texture popping is rampant, causing details to appear abruptly and creating a visually unappealing experience.
IGN’s exclusive 20 minutes of gameplay footage highlighted these issues, showcasing a terrible framerate with frequent stuttering during action sequences.
For a “soulslike” game in an already oversaturated market, this is a significant issue. Coupled with the unappealing protagonist, it’s hard not to be put off immediately.
Honestly, the assumption that Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn would be like Forspoken was spot on. The game is woefully terrible and subsequently flopped upon its release, peaking at a dismal 648 players on Steam.
To put this into perspective, even Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League managed to attract at least 13,000 players on its release day before quickly crashing once players realized how bad it was.
YouTubers who specialize in promoting and playing low-quality games universally agree that the story and premise of Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn are its weakest points. Given that Sweet Baby Inc is primarily a consultation company focused on narrative and character design, this is hardly surprising.
Another reason for the low player counts on PC is that, like many modern titles, Flintlock was available at launch on Xbox Game Pass. This subscription service allows players to access games without purchasing them outright, which has hampered developers’ revenue.
The Game Pass system compensates developers based on the number of players and their engagement duration, making live service games the only viable titles in such an environment. Single player titles are often neglected, especially shitty ones at that.
As the standard price of video games has risen from $60 to $70, it seems the industry is using this trend to validate and promote subscription services by making outright purchases less appealing.
Needless to say, Sweet Baby Inc is the kiss of death for video game design. The elusive consultation company has directly led to the closure of three studios: Volition, Luminous Productions, and Mimimi Games, after being consulted on their projects.
Numerous other studios associated with them have faced significant layoffs but remain operational. Journalists who initially praised Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn have fallen silent post-release.
Outlets like IGN, GameSpot, and PC Gamer have given the game “acceptable” ratings of 6/10 or 7/10, despite it being a mundane and bland soulslike with an irredeemably ugly protagonist and marred by poor performance optimization due to Unreal Engine’s issues.
It’s satisfying to see yet another Sweet Baby Inc. product flounder in the open market. With over 400,000 PC gamers boycotting this consultancy for pushing woke narratives, it’s only a matter of time before A44 Games announces layoffs or even closure.
The video game industry is inching closer to a widespread collapse, entirely due to the influence of Blackrock and its detrimental ESG policies which are being upheld across the entire industry from developers to journalists.
