Nothin’ wrong with me…
Nothin’ wrong with me…
Nothin’ wrong with me…
Nothin’ wrong with me…
Oh fudge…who do I think I’m kidding?
Courtesy of Ace’s long and detailed piece of yesterday, I’ve only just become aware of what he’s styled “GamerGate 2.0.” You may recall the original GamerGate dustup. Among other happy consequences, it resulted in a huge defeat for the forces of “woke” and “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” But the thing to remember about the Left is that its strategists regard no setback as permanent. They’re relentless. Wherever we think we’ve defeated them, they’re sure to be back. So it is with video games.
This “Sweet Baby Inc.” (SBI) organization is an explicitly ideological firm. It’s dedicated to forcing “diversity, equity, and inclusion” into video games – preferably popular video games. Its camouflage is as “narrative developers” who propose to “assist” game makers with their “storytelling.” And as you may have guessed, it’s a total canard.
Here’s SBI’s very own home-page description of its mission:
Founded in 2018, Sweet Baby Inc, Is a narrative development and consultation studio based in Montreal and working around the globe. Our mission is to tell better, more empathetic stories while diversifying and enriching the video games industry. We aim to make games more engaging, more fun, more meaningful, and more inclusive, for everyone….
We believe you need diverse voices to solve diverse problems. Sweet Baby Inc. provides narrative consultation at any stage of development, boasting a talented team with vetted industry experience to bring your best story to life….
New and marginalized talent can change this industry if given the proper support. We want to provide this through our outreach programs.
Got the idea? It’s hardly concealed.
As with the original GamerGate contretemps, gamers are reacting – negatively. I don’t have demographic statistics on the gamer populace, so I’m willing to assume that gamers are demographically distributed roughly as are First Worlders generally. Whatever the case, they don’t want SBI fucking with the games they love.
But how does SBI actually pursue its agenda?
Here’s Ace’s take:
Sweet Baby Inc. claims to be a game development company, but they develop no games. Instead, they pressure actual game companies to hire them to censor their games for them. In addition, Sweet Baby Inc. demands that the companies paying them for their worthless services increase Muh Representation in every game, no matter how little sense it makes.
For example, Sweet Baby Inc. was hired by the God of War developers. The latest game involves the Norse gods. God of War includes a black female Norse god.
Ace provides a long list of games where SBI has had its way. Then:
How does Sweet Baby Inc. get actual game developer companies to make worse and more unpopular games than they otherwise would, and get paid for telling people how to lose money?
It’s very simple, as the founder of the grifter group explains: You pitch your money-losing ideas to the companies’ leaders. Then, when they turn down your ideas (as they SHOULD!), you just go to the marketing department and “terrify” them by telling them how much money they’ll lose when Sweet Baby Inc.’s ideological allies cancel the game for not being sufficiently woke:
The Co-Founder of Sweet Baby Inc Kim Belair proudly explains the method she uses to force bosses at game studios to censor, alter, and “diversify” game projects she feels are problematic – “Terrify them” aka threaten them with the anger of the cancel culture mob. pic.twitter.com/eFJZeKqSZd
— GamesNosh (@GamesNosh) March 4, 2024
The “narrative” being “developed” here is that of a protection racket. Nothing more. But that’s the whole of the Left’s strategy: threaten the target with a militant group of “victims” and “marginalized persons” that will wage a campaign of defamation against the target if it doesn’t bend the knee to the Left’s agenda. As the media in our time are ever-ready to provide a megaphone to such groups, such a threat can chill the blood of legendarily lily-livered corporate managements. You need actual confidence in your stance to withstand it.
But the companies that develop video games appear to be of a higher class. They know what they’re doing. They know what works in video gaming. They also know they have the support of their customers; that was established back during GamerGate V1.0. So for the moment, most are resisting successfully.
I spent some time yesterday on various gamers’ sites such as Steam, and in the sections dedicated to them on servers such as Discord. Gamers are furious about SBI and its tactics. They want better games, with better stories to propel them. They don’t want to be lectured or harangued by anyone, regardless of his message. So they’re fighting back. One enterprising gamer even wrote a plug-in that detects SBI’s meddling with a game and warns off potential buyers. That degree of constructive involvement is all but unique to the videogaming community.
There’s a lot we in the Right can learn from the gamers. If they differ about whether and when to tack or furl the sails, nevertheless they come together to repel boarders. And they do it with a fury that deserves copious applause. Now it’s back to my daily dose of Drowning Pool. “Nothin’ wrong with me…nothin’ wrong with me…”
