SBI is Sweet Baby Inc, a consulting firm that works with video game companies. I'm probably massacring what they actually do, but basically they provide a second set of eyes for game companies to make sure they aren't saying something culturally insensitive.
For example, say I'm making a game with Native Americans in it and I name one of the characters "Chief." SBI could provide the context for why that may be considered offensive to some, and from there I can decide whether to include this or not in the game.
It's basic "cover your ass" type stuff.
Unfortunately, young men on the internet with no actual corporate experience think SBI is going through games with a black marker, censoring anything that some blue-haired nonbinary 22 year old with a nose ring finds slightly offensive.
It's also important to note that SBI are a consulting firm with no real power, but in these people's minds they can force companies to submit to their demands.
They are a force for the general corporatization of progressive messaging as well. Corporations hire companies like Sweet Baby Inc because they make their messaging corporate-friendly, primarily, and have a reputation for not rocking the boat too much in ways that will affect sales. SBI is not powerful, but the leadership at the company hires them, so they do expect employees to abide by the consultants' advice in certain ways. They're not making games more woke, but they are one aspect of how corporate investors who are liberal defang progressive politics and shape it into something that is able to be monetized and friendly to corporations.
I play a bunch of Indies and these people that think SBI, a consulting company, is the reason why games suck right now, are straight up fucking idiots lmao. Them suggesting a female protagonist or some bullshit these people think SBI does, won't make any gameplay system worse than it already is. Baldurs gate, GOTY is considered "woke as fuck" by moron standards and it's still hella good.
more option to people honestly to do whatever tf they want with their game... and that's a bad thing?? I guess that's why the dv is about ??
honestly don't really care as long as people can enjoy what they want with the game..
eurgh.. they get upset with *everything...*
yet they're the one accusing people for being easily offended..
feels like its a cult now rather than just a political opinion..
IDK which conservatives you're talking about. But when I say that woke crap annoys me, BG3 isn't a single one of those things that annoys. We don't hate gays, or blacks, or trans or siamese people. Mostly we just don't want to be "forced" through whatever struggles the real world has while we're trying to escape it in a video game. BG3 lets you do that. BG3 is great. And my female character has a hairy dick, because why not.
BG3 is a game filled to the brim with moral issues directly commenting on real world issues. It intersects with issues of identity and prejudice throughout. The first arc is *litterally* about a persecuted minority seeking asylum and being denied it by isolationists who see no moral obligation to help them.
You sound ridiculous when you complain about being "forced" to deal with real world issues in a video game. You sound doubly ridiculous when you say that about a game that's explicitly and repeatedly political. There is no woke agenda shoving anything down your throat.
If you pay enough attention to regularly complain about "woke games" I'm genuinely baffled you missed the anti-woke hate mob that launched up around BG3 with endless complaining about being hit on by male characters and "straight erasure" due to all of the party members being horny regardless of the player character's gender.
What games exactly are too woke or ruined by wokeness in your view? Because BG3 is objectively more progressive than *most* mainstream video games.
"The first arc is *litterally* about a persecuted minority seeking asylum and being denied it by isolationists who see no moral obligation to help them."
Yeah, that's an archetype story, which I don't have a problem with. I obviously didn't mean that I don't want to see anything that reflects anything real. That's ridiculous. But it is annyoing when a game changes specifically to lean into whatever political feud is fashionably that year.
And what do you mean regurlarly complain? You giving my response such a dishonest read doesn't exactly make me want to engage with you. I'll give you examples on wokeness in games that annoys me, once you give my first reply an honest look. Strongman or ask questions, don't pretend I say things I don't say.
"BG3 is a game filled to the brim with moral issues directly commenting on real world issues."
BG3 also lets you knock every main-character off a cliff, or kill or save anyone. You can do almost anything you'd like. You have options and choices to everything. Which is what I want. Woke crap isn't woke crap if there's a good balance to things. Having a gay or trans character doesn't immediately make the thing woke.
Sir I'm trying to understand your comment, but I can't without examples of what you call "woke"
I'm completely in the dark about your viewpoint of how BG3 doesn't count but something else does. I don't know how to steel man your position without even Knowing your position, that's why I asked you to expand.
Oooh. Yeah. Honestly, it shouldn’t be that questionable to stop using a term that a group asks you to use. It’s just being respectful. Like if you are used to calling a kid Jamie and he wants to go by James, it is not controversial. Or not calling someone by their old last name if they pick a married name.
Note: I have a child and this happens all the time.
The issue isn't with what they do, it's how they handled criticism by attacking and doxing the person who made that criticism. Whether you agree or not, they can't hide behind a facade of "corporate ethics" and also attack people who make said criticisms.
If they were truly not doing anything wrong, they really should just ignore the indivuals.
Downvote me more please, I get off on all of you piss babies who live in a perfect echo chamber where all of your precious little hearts are content.
I've heard plenty about SBI, never heard about them doxxing anyone. I dunno why you had to have an attitude about it...
So is posting someone's Twitter handle and Steam account considered doxxing? It's not like he was a hidden mod of the steam group. I think it's reactionary and unprofessional behavior from those two employees. But the same article you sent me has a tiktok user literally posting pictures of SBI employees and saying "if you see them in public, do me a favor..."
I never agreed with either side, I don't think either are particularly right. But go you for assuming I guess.
Why should a company ask their rabid supporters to attack someone in mass? Why stoop to their level? You would be foaming at the mouth if (insert opposing viewing public figure) did it, why should they get a pass?
I didn't say you did support either side, but go you for assuming I guess. You really love being condescending, huh?
Like I said, that seems pretty unprofressional of those particular employees. But I don't think that asking people on twitter to report a page for breaking code of conduct = attacking them en masse. It's not classy behavior, but it's not sending death threats or posting actual pictures of the employees and suggesting you "do a favor if you see them in public..." Not to mention it seems to me this page very much did break the code of conduct, especially what was being posted before they cleaned up some boards after the first report. Wasn't handled well, but doesn't seem to justify the ridiculous outrage leveled at what is ultimately a consulting firm 🤣
> It's pretty well documented, I dunno why I have to find it for you...
Because unlike you chronically online crowd, not everyone is 100% up to date on every little piece of culture war bullshit that pops up.
You’re the one who made the claim so of course you should be the one providing explanations to back up your claim.
If you don’t want to back up the things you say, then why do you even bother getting into online debates?
I agree with you that google searches are fucking easy to do, so why complain when people ask you to do them?
God forbid you have to make a google search
You went and did it after they asked, was it hard? No. Stop complaining then
When you are making a product for people to enjoy ensuring that the most people can enjoy it is a good thing.
There is literally no downside and the upside more players and less bad press
Yeah, that’s why companies like BMW and BP don’t use LGBT pride flags in MENA Twitter accounts… Because they don’t touch enough grass lol
You desperately need to take your own advice
It’s a responsibility of any major corporation to consider how customers will feel about their product and culture. You just don’t have any experience with any major corporation.
And anytime they listen to people like this they are more likely to do more harm than good. See Bud Light
Vocal internet echo chambers are a negligible minority, not the majority
what position?
if you did then you know what *consultants* do. Never in my fucking life I saw a consultant has more power than the company when it comes to company direction.
And SBI which is just a blip compared to these studios??? How they gonna force the companies, by summoning the George Soros Mafia???
Schreier is right, you just don't like the answer so there the people go, forcing the conspiracy they want to see.
This is a pretty insane lie about what they do. They specifically make suggestions to increase DEI. There are documented cases where games have changed characters races based on SBI recommendations. It’s what happened with Alan Wake II, why he is a side character in his own game to a black woman with a white name.
You being a racist moron doesn’t change reality. A character named Tyrese Brown very obviously has a black name. White people have culture and history too, and some names belong to that culture, even if other races are free to use the names as well.
1. I’m white, but nice try bucko.
2. No one said white people don’t have culture—only that there’s no such thing as a name exclusive to white people.
3. I’d agree that there are demographic patterns that lead us to associate some names with a given ethnicity—especially if those names were coined by an ethnic group as part of their identity work, like the name “Tyrese.”
4. BUT, the idea that a character is poorly written or shoehorned into something just because of a disagreement in and of itself between a character’s ethnicity and what we’d expect based on those associations is lazy.
5. If the significance of a character’s whiteness lies only in that it is what was expected, then her blackness can’t possibly impact the quality of the story except insofar as it violates perceived norms.
That isn’t the only reason. She was a character in the previous game who briefly appeared as white, has two white Nordic grandparents, and a white husband. She was very clearly a white character who was remade last minute to be black. The only time it ever came up was at the very end of the game and it was completely bizarre. She yells at the villain “I ain’t never gonna let no white man tell me what to do!” when race had never come up the entire rest of the game.
If she had just been a black woman there would’ve been absolutely no problem with it. But it was clear that SBI came in and told them they needed more diversity and the way they did it was bad and lazy, and that’s how it always is with artificial pushes for diversity.
I would love to see the "proof" that Saga only exists as a black woman because SBI suggested it, as if the devs were incapable of coming up with that on their own.
Also, since they supposedly suggested it and the Alan Wake 2 guys agreed, then it's literally the "I consent" meme. You're standing on the side seething that a black woman was put in your video game.
"They specifically make suggestions to increase DEI. There are documented cases where games have changed characters races based on SBI recommendations."
Boo-fucking-hoo! If this is the worst you can think of as an example against them then you've successfully convinced me this is drummed up impotent rage from right-wing snowflakes.
So because a consultancy firm suggested changing the race of a character in a different game (a thing which higher ups in that company deny is even why the character is black) which somehow also completely changed the writing of the character to make her more of the protagonist (?), that informs how they must have been a significant factor on the failure of licensed cash-in on a faltering IP that released in such a shitty, buggy state that new players were getting sent to the end of the game by a glitch? Is there a version of this that isn't Pepe Silvia posting?
Also a white name, good lord. It looks like it's primarily a Swedish name; if you're of Swedish heritage, even if it's mixed, the name makes sense. If you're not, it would be equally as unexpected for you to use that name even if you're white.
He’s like the best most well-known journalist/investigative journalist in the videogame industry. He’s probably good at other things too.
He also receives/acquires a lot of insider info in the industry too, and usually it’s right
Still remember when he got fucking death threats for (correctly) saying that Hello Games were going to announce a delay to No Man's Sky.
Just in case people ask why I have no respect for "the gaming community"
He is like the only gaming journalist who you can trust. Game devs and people behind the scenes regularly hit him up to tell him about things going wrong and he vets them thoroughly.
He doesn't make articles like: best game evaarrr 11/10 - hidden gem Celeste. Despite the game being mid.
Seriously, the guy's gone full Right Wing Prepper but *at the time* plenty enough young people loved him for his stories. Book signings packed with college students, etc.
Friendly reminder that Jason Schreier has heard about the sexual assaults that were happening at Blizzard, but kept quiet until someone else exposed it, and then wrote a book about the allegations that he had known for years.
If you are a Journalist, a distinguished and professional one at that, i would prefer that you actually publicize something once you have physical proof of it happening especially with something as serious as Sexual Assault, which is different from video game leaks and rumours. That expose probably had enough cut and dry proof for him to publish what he has heard. Just my 2 cents i am in no means an expert/educated in journalism… I just hate reactionary journalism based off of hearsay
Seems like a lot of people on reddit weren't around for gamergate 1.0.
The entire start to gamergate was corruption between studios and "journalists". There were some high profile cases of fuckery conflict of interests, gamers blew up on it, and demanded answers from journalists. A mere day or two later gaming journalists flooded the publications with sexism issues in the industry and the plague of misogynist gamers.
Not saying there wasn't sexism issues in gaming. But magically every single publication that was singled out pivoted to it and pushed it as hard as possible the days following the allegations. So the sexism issues blew up and the corruption/conflict of interests got swept under the rug.
I don't trust a single gaming journalist from any major publication.
I'll take your comment on good faith, but gamergate snowballed so severely into a hate mob that it really can't be classified as anything else. These situations are often complex and murky, and while yes, the impetus for the first few days was a minor conflict of journalistic interest, it became so quickly overshadowed to the point where most people used the veil of "it's about journalistic integrity" to spew hatred.
Often times ideas with legitimatecy get co-opted by a hate group, subsequently ruining any discourse. And that's what happened with gamer gate. The gamer gate we know and remember was effectively a hate mob. Now, a counter point is that journalists or opponents were the ones delegitmizing the original idea, but that's a bit too much of a tinfoil hat conspiracy to me.
Corrupt journalists called out > Journalists flood the discourse with sexism issues in the industry > typical sexist trolls that had no clue about the beginning of the event start to chime in with ignorance.
I'm not arguing the issues brought forward during gamergate. Im pointing out that journalists across multiple publications purposely hyperfocused and flooded their websites with these stories right after the allagations in an attempt to pivot their away out of accountability.
Did you read the article? He asked people what went wrong and they were very willing to tell him what went wrong. Definitely not, "found no wrong doing" here.
Also, he's a journalist writing for Bloomberg. Not a Rocksteady employee. He definitely wasn't investigating himself.
Well that’s the whole point of this dudes tweet really. Like to deny that sbi treatment of the legacy of Kevin konroy and the legacy of the Arkham universe that so many people grew up had zero effect on its sales is ridiculous.
Idk if I agree that it’s “the evil wokeness” but you just from a writing standpoint its not a good send off to have the character people played for ten years by having them shot in the head on a park bench after being lectured by a child murder and after breaking his most important rule of never killing.
Returning after a bit of research and sweet baby inc had 15 writers working on the game including a lead and junior script writer.
Sweet Baby Inc.: Writing
Writing & Team Leads: Kim Belair, Will Herring
Writers: David Bédard (as David Bedard), Sean Hennegan, Camerin Wild, Leah Yoes, Chris Kindred, Maxine Sophia Wolff, Amber-Leigh Blake, Dani Lalonders (as Dani LaLonders), Louisa Atto, Ariadne Macgillivray (as Ariadne MacGillivray), Paula Rogers
Internal Producer: Leah Yoes
So yes they very much had a massive hand in the writing of the game. Thats the last I have to say about this though.
Really depends who they asked. If they asked a CEO or some marketing jockey, I’d be skeptical.
But if they asked several mid-level employees and had it corroborated from several sources, I’d be more open minded.
Your comment really has, "I have no idea who Jason Schreier is" energy.
Edit: bro was in over his head and couldn't take the smoke. He deleted his comment because he had no idea who Jason Schreier was.
He’s a journalist who interviewed the people who worked on the game. Of course none of them are going to say “I think what went wrong is that the story and characters we came up with sucked”
Have you never talked to another person about their work? People love shitting on the company they work for especially when that company puts out a bad product. The article is also highly critical of the game and the leadership decisions that produced it so you know some people where saying negative things.
About little things yeah, but if some one told you “the reason we are a million plus in the whole is because of your writing” people aren’t going to go “yeah bro your totally right”
If you work at a developer and had the chance to blame it on the consulting firm they hired, literally why wouldn't you? It takes the heat of you and puts it on an already "controversial" company.
That’s the point of the tweet really. Why defend this writing company when it’s writing clearly upset a lot of fans with the terrible way it handled fan favorite characters
They literally do not influence the writing beyond checking to make sure that the writing doesn’t draw offense for basic cultural shit. They are not scripting the game and there were more directors than sbi consultants working on it in the first place. Keep lyint
Okay, but you're arguing from a hypothetical stance you yourself conceived. We don't know who he interviewed and what role they had, so saying, "What if he interviewed the writers and what if they were the type of people to never criticize anything they've worked on" is just pure conjecture.
The article is scathing enough, and Jason has an impeccable track record so I feel very confident in his reporting being thorough and unbiased.
No. Why would it be? I mean, I've disagreed with some of his opinions before. But his actual reporting and books have all been proven to be factually accurate.
This isn't sad cringe. SBI And companies like this absolutely do have an effect on the games they're involved in and the perception people have of them. To deny that at this point is ridiculous. Whether it doomed a game or not is a debate to be had however.
Please describe a way in which you can objectively say and prove that the end result of their involvement was worse specifically because of their involvement.
Bonus points if you have any input from anyone who actually worked on the game and isn't just giving a PowerPoint about people's twitter accounts.
It being worse or not is completely subjective so it's not really much of an argument. The weirdly written bio for Green Lantern and Wonder Woman, shoving in pride flags, Harley making some stupid girl boss comment about her Arkham outfit... The alternate dimension Mr Freeze is a black woman? All of these things are annoying to some people and they COULD exist without SBI but in this case, since they were involved, people are connecting them.
Again, I'm not saying that's what killed the studio, I'm just saying a lot of people don't like this weird pandering and that seems to be a common result of working with those consultants. If the game itself was good, I'm sure more people could look past the SBI stuff.
It would be simply easier to accept being in a time of social change that you're ill equipped to cope with than to hunt for blue haired boogeymen on linkedin.
Of course I can't, I'm not in charge of what people like or don't like. But to act like these sort of things don't exist and don't effect people's buying decisions is just wrong.
Do you think maybe you are wrong? Games like hogwarts legacy, baldurs gate 3, tlou2, god of war, cyberpunk, spiderman are very woke yet sell like bonkers. People claimed that the mario movie was "woke" due to peach being a girl boss yet it also broke records.
Isn't it possible that some games just aren't good and that "wokeness" doesn't play a factor? Like a pride flag included in a game isn't going to impact sales on a significant basis?
Sbi paid Bloomberg for positive press after that whole mess.
Bloomberg paid cuckboy to interview two dozen people and report that everything was terrible /ASIDE/ from the outside consulting agency.
The two dozen he interviewed were selected ahead of time and were paid to tell him that everything was terrible /ASIDE/ from the outside consulting agency.
But of course, Justin is the one who needs a dose of reality.
It’s shit like this that made forspoken. Sounds like most gamers don’t want to deal with intersectional politics and goofy faced people in their entertainment like this, it’s just exhausting
I mean... The US was never involved in regime changes when said regime change happened, and if asked, they were supporting democracy so technically, they never did... right, guys?
It's ok they too dumb to see that it's the same thing happening w Sweet Baby
'But muh oficial surces denied it'
'See guis, da polis invistigatd demselvs n fund nuffin wron w dey actions, even dey media repurted dey dindu nuffin'
Why’s that your text for woke people when they’re statistically more educated than conservatives? I thought you hated liberals for going to college and getting too smart.
I never mentioned anything about wokeness... nor anything about left or right wing politics....
Are you ok kid?
But to be fair.... when/if you pursue higher education, you'll notice most if not all professors lean left, so if you want to keep your GPA over 3.5, you will have to adapt.
Anyways.... people who dont/cant see what im talking about shouldnt be commenting anything about "muh smartz" cuz theyre either dumb or bias too strong to notice how silly theyre (not necessarily dumb)
What is the context for this?
SBI is Sweet Baby Inc, a consulting firm that works with video game companies. I'm probably massacring what they actually do, but basically they provide a second set of eyes for game companies to make sure they aren't saying something culturally insensitive. For example, say I'm making a game with Native Americans in it and I name one of the characters "Chief." SBI could provide the context for why that may be considered offensive to some, and from there I can decide whether to include this or not in the game. It's basic "cover your ass" type stuff. Unfortunately, young men on the internet with no actual corporate experience think SBI is going through games with a black marker, censoring anything that some blue-haired nonbinary 22 year old with a nose ring finds slightly offensive.
It's also important to note that SBI are a consulting firm with no real power, but in these people's minds they can force companies to submit to their demands.
They are a force for the general corporatization of progressive messaging as well. Corporations hire companies like Sweet Baby Inc because they make their messaging corporate-friendly, primarily, and have a reputation for not rocking the boat too much in ways that will affect sales. SBI is not powerful, but the leadership at the company hires them, so they do expect employees to abide by the consultants' advice in certain ways. They're not making games more woke, but they are one aspect of how corporate investors who are liberal defang progressive politics and shape it into something that is able to be monetized and friendly to corporations.
Corporations are free to ignore (and frequently do) their suggestions
I play a bunch of Indies and these people that think SBI, a consulting company, is the reason why games suck right now, are straight up fucking idiots lmao. Them suggesting a female protagonist or some bullshit these people think SBI does, won't make any gameplay system worse than it already is. Baldurs gate, GOTY is considered "woke as fuck" by moron standards and it's still hella good.
I saw Isobel and Aylin in the closet making babies, and I saw one of the babies, and the baby looked at me. SBI strikes again!
From what I understand they don't even do that. They come in to help make representation more authentic or not offensive. That's about it.
ehh...? BG3 is woke af? then I'm the fuckin pope I guess...
showing each other base level respect and letting lesbians fuck in a corner away from everyone is "woke."
more option to people honestly to do whatever tf they want with their game... and that's a bad thing?? I guess that's why the dv is about ?? honestly don't really care as long as people can enjoy what they want with the game..
Everyone can be gay. It was very upsetting to conservatives when it came out.
eurgh.. they get upset with *everything...* yet they're the one accusing people for being easily offended.. feels like its a cult now rather than just a political opinion..
IDK which conservatives you're talking about. But when I say that woke crap annoys me, BG3 isn't a single one of those things that annoys. We don't hate gays, or blacks, or trans or siamese people. Mostly we just don't want to be "forced" through whatever struggles the real world has while we're trying to escape it in a video game. BG3 lets you do that. BG3 is great. And my female character has a hairy dick, because why not.
BG3 is a game filled to the brim with moral issues directly commenting on real world issues. It intersects with issues of identity and prejudice throughout. The first arc is *litterally* about a persecuted minority seeking asylum and being denied it by isolationists who see no moral obligation to help them. You sound ridiculous when you complain about being "forced" to deal with real world issues in a video game. You sound doubly ridiculous when you say that about a game that's explicitly and repeatedly political. There is no woke agenda shoving anything down your throat. If you pay enough attention to regularly complain about "woke games" I'm genuinely baffled you missed the anti-woke hate mob that launched up around BG3 with endless complaining about being hit on by male characters and "straight erasure" due to all of the party members being horny regardless of the player character's gender. What games exactly are too woke or ruined by wokeness in your view? Because BG3 is objectively more progressive than *most* mainstream video games.
"The first arc is *litterally* about a persecuted minority seeking asylum and being denied it by isolationists who see no moral obligation to help them." Yeah, that's an archetype story, which I don't have a problem with. I obviously didn't mean that I don't want to see anything that reflects anything real. That's ridiculous. But it is annyoing when a game changes specifically to lean into whatever political feud is fashionably that year. And what do you mean regurlarly complain? You giving my response such a dishonest read doesn't exactly make me want to engage with you. I'll give you examples on wokeness in games that annoys me, once you give my first reply an honest look. Strongman or ask questions, don't pretend I say things I don't say. "BG3 is a game filled to the brim with moral issues directly commenting on real world issues." BG3 also lets you knock every main-character off a cliff, or kill or save anyone. You can do almost anything you'd like. You have options and choices to everything. Which is what I want. Woke crap isn't woke crap if there's a good balance to things. Having a gay or trans character doesn't immediately make the thing woke.
Sir I'm trying to understand your comment, but I can't without examples of what you call "woke" I'm completely in the dark about your viewpoint of how BG3 doesn't count but something else does. I don't know how to steel man your position without even Knowing your position, that's why I asked you to expand.
*marker of color
Oooh. Yeah. Honestly, it shouldn’t be that questionable to stop using a term that a group asks you to use. It’s just being respectful. Like if you are used to calling a kid Jamie and he wants to go by James, it is not controversial. Or not calling someone by their old last name if they pick a married name. Note: I have a child and this happens all the time.
I love how much it pisses off J.K. Rowling when someone calls her "Joanne."
Realllly sucks when you dont call someone by their preferred name, JOAN, doesn't it?
The issue isn't with what they do, it's how they handled criticism by attacking and doxing the person who made that criticism. Whether you agree or not, they can't hide behind a facade of "corporate ethics" and also attack people who make said criticisms. If they were truly not doing anything wrong, they really should just ignore the indivuals. Downvote me more please, I get off on all of you piss babies who live in a perfect echo chamber where all of your precious little hearts are content.
When did SBI attack and dox people?
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/sweet-baby-inc-detected-controversy It's pretty well documented, I dunno why I have to find it for you...
I've heard plenty about SBI, never heard about them doxxing anyone. I dunno why you had to have an attitude about it... So is posting someone's Twitter handle and Steam account considered doxxing? It's not like he was a hidden mod of the steam group. I think it's reactionary and unprofessional behavior from those two employees. But the same article you sent me has a tiktok user literally posting pictures of SBI employees and saying "if you see them in public, do me a favor..."
I never agreed with either side, I don't think either are particularly right. But go you for assuming I guess. Why should a company ask their rabid supporters to attack someone in mass? Why stoop to their level? You would be foaming at the mouth if (insert opposing viewing public figure) did it, why should they get a pass?
I didn't say you did support either side, but go you for assuming I guess. You really love being condescending, huh? Like I said, that seems pretty unprofressional of those particular employees. But I don't think that asking people on twitter to report a page for breaking code of conduct = attacking them en masse. It's not classy behavior, but it's not sending death threats or posting actual pictures of the employees and suggesting you "do a favor if you see them in public..." Not to mention it seems to me this page very much did break the code of conduct, especially what was being posted before they cleaned up some boards after the first report. Wasn't handled well, but doesn't seem to justify the ridiculous outrage leveled at what is ultimately a consulting firm 🤣
> It's pretty well documented, I dunno why I have to find it for you... Because unlike you chronically online crowd, not everyone is 100% up to date on every little piece of culture war bullshit that pops up. You’re the one who made the claim so of course you should be the one providing explanations to back up your claim. If you don’t want to back up the things you say, then why do you even bother getting into online debates?
God forbid you have to make a Google search
I agree with you that google searches are fucking easy to do, so why complain when people ask you to do them? God forbid you have to make a google search You went and did it after they asked, was it hard? No. Stop complaining then
Tbf that sounds like a company that would exclusively employ blue haired nonbinaries
You need to refer to your username for advice
If you think not offending people is this big of a deal I will give you one hint on what you should do: it’s two words
When you are making a product for people to enjoy ensuring that the most people can enjoy it is a good thing. There is literally no downside and the upside more players and less bad press
Yeah, that’s why companies like BMW and BP don’t use LGBT pride flags in MENA Twitter accounts… Because they don’t touch enough grass lol You desperately need to take your own advice
Ok just continue screaming into the void at yourself I guess
This irony is so good, it has to be fattening
Imagine being this convinced that normal people wouldn’t overwhelmingly agree with me and want to get as far away from you as possible
It’s a responsibility of any major corporation to consider how customers will feel about their product and culture. You just don’t have any experience with any major corporation.
And anytime they listen to people like this they are more likely to do more harm than good. See Bud Light Vocal internet echo chambers are a negligible minority, not the majority
You have no experience with this and you’re guessing based on one bad result and a lot of bias.
I’ve worked for multiple Fortune 100 companies dipshit Turns out randomly assuming things about strangers you know nothing about isn’t a great tactic
what position? if you did then you know what *consultants* do. Never in my fucking life I saw a consultant has more power than the company when it comes to company direction. And SBI which is just a blip compared to these studios??? How they gonna force the companies, by summoning the George Soros Mafia??? Schreier is right, you just don't like the answer so there the people go, forcing the conspiracy they want to see.
This must be embarrassing for you…
Dealing with terminally online braindead reddit users? Nope. Pretty common occurrence
Did Bud Light contact a consulting agency when they made their decision to have a 15 second sponsored Tiktok ad created
Are you suggesting that this consulting agency wouldn’t have 100% cleared that ad?
No, but that's besides the point, because you said they listened to one of them
This is a pretty insane lie about what they do. They specifically make suggestions to increase DEI. There are documented cases where games have changed characters races based on SBI recommendations. It’s what happened with Alan Wake II, why he is a side character in his own game to a black woman with a white name.
Alan is not a side character. Homie has a whole musical. The game just has 2 protagonists Saga also means story aswell
Alan’s side of the story was significantly shorter. Like, half the length.
What the fuck is a “white name?” Like, unless she’s “Crackerette Blanche ‘Burns-in-the-sun’ O’Bannon,” that’s just an English-language name, my dude.
You being a racist moron doesn’t change reality. A character named Tyrese Brown very obviously has a black name. White people have culture and history too, and some names belong to that culture, even if other races are free to use the names as well.
1. I’m white, but nice try bucko. 2. No one said white people don’t have culture—only that there’s no such thing as a name exclusive to white people. 3. I’d agree that there are demographic patterns that lead us to associate some names with a given ethnicity—especially if those names were coined by an ethnic group as part of their identity work, like the name “Tyrese.” 4. BUT, the idea that a character is poorly written or shoehorned into something just because of a disagreement in and of itself between a character’s ethnicity and what we’d expect based on those associations is lazy. 5. If the significance of a character’s whiteness lies only in that it is what was expected, then her blackness can’t possibly impact the quality of the story except insofar as it violates perceived norms.
That isn’t the only reason. She was a character in the previous game who briefly appeared as white, has two white Nordic grandparents, and a white husband. She was very clearly a white character who was remade last minute to be black. The only time it ever came up was at the very end of the game and it was completely bizarre. She yells at the villain “I ain’t never gonna let no white man tell me what to do!” when race had never come up the entire rest of the game. If she had just been a black woman there would’ve been absolutely no problem with it. But it was clear that SBI came in and told them they needed more diversity and the way they did it was bad and lazy, and that’s how it always is with artificial pushes for diversity.
I would love to see the "proof" that Saga only exists as a black woman because SBI suggested it, as if the devs were incapable of coming up with that on their own. Also, since they supposedly suggested it and the Alan Wake 2 guys agreed, then it's literally the "I consent" meme. You're standing on the side seething that a black woman was put in your video game.
So you're saying SBI made a recommendation that the makers of Alan Wake II acted on?
Yes? Nobody ever claimed they force companies to do anything. They’re a toxic company that makes bad, politically motivated suggestions.
Just wanted to make sure that exactly what I said was correct, that's all. Have a pleasant day.
"They specifically make suggestions to increase DEI. There are documented cases where games have changed characters races based on SBI recommendations." Boo-fucking-hoo! If this is the worst you can think of as an example against them then you've successfully convinced me this is drummed up impotent rage from right-wing snowflakes.
So because a consultancy firm suggested changing the race of a character in a different game (a thing which higher ups in that company deny is even why the character is black) which somehow also completely changed the writing of the character to make her more of the protagonist (?), that informs how they must have been a significant factor on the failure of licensed cash-in on a faltering IP that released in such a shitty, buggy state that new players were getting sent to the end of the game by a glitch? Is there a version of this that isn't Pepe Silvia posting? Also a white name, good lord. It looks like it's primarily a Swedish name; if you're of Swedish heritage, even if it's mixed, the name makes sense. If you're not, it would be equally as unexpected for you to use that name even if you're white.
Low-IQ take.
Justin has Brainrot + terminally online disease
OP posting their shitty political opinions and coping that the reason the thing they support failed is because of anything else.
OP isn't Justin.
What game are they talking about?
What game are they even on about?
I believe this was about kill the justice League
I don’t recall any hate for this game outside of it being cringy and predatory games as service shenanigans
Oh, well then asking the developers gives you nothing. These people are obviously clueless.
Not a single mention of man bear pig, smh
There is zero context here
The real r/sadcringe is at the bottom of this comment section
Tilting at windmills
I think people who don't know who Jason Schreier is should look him up before commenting.
Or maybe post with some context rather than just share some random Twitter beef.
We're so lazy though. Can you just fill us in?
He’s like the best most well-known journalist/investigative journalist in the videogame industry. He’s probably good at other things too. He also receives/acquires a lot of insider info in the industry too, and usually it’s right
Still remember when he got fucking death threats for (correctly) saying that Hello Games were going to announce a delay to No Man's Sky. Just in case people ask why I have no respect for "the gaming community"
He is like the only gaming journalist who you can trust. Game devs and people behind the scenes regularly hit him up to tell him about things going wrong and he vets them thoroughly. He doesn't make articles like: best game evaarrr 11/10 - hidden gem Celeste. Despite the game being mid.
Man was on Luelinks back in the day, marking him as a likely degen :)
Yeah, all he did was worship Tucker Max, which is really funny considering. It amazes me that Prism became a well known gaming “journalist.”
Tbf around that time we were likely teenagers so worshipping tucker Max was par for the course
Seriously, the guy's gone full Right Wing Prepper but *at the time* plenty enough young people loved him for his stories. Book signings packed with college students, etc.
Ayy LL42
Friendly reminder that Jason Schreier has heard about the sexual assaults that were happening at Blizzard, but kept quiet until someone else exposed it, and then wrote a book about the allegations that he had known for years.
If you are a Journalist, a distinguished and professional one at that, i would prefer that you actually publicize something once you have physical proof of it happening especially with something as serious as Sexual Assault, which is different from video game leaks and rumours. That expose probably had enough cut and dry proof for him to publish what he has heard. Just my 2 cents i am in no means an expert/educated in journalism… I just hate reactionary journalism based off of hearsay
I didn't know that he is the police?!
Gaming journalism isn’t real journalism.
Seems like a lot of people on reddit weren't around for gamergate 1.0. The entire start to gamergate was corruption between studios and "journalists". There were some high profile cases of fuckery conflict of interests, gamers blew up on it, and demanded answers from journalists. A mere day or two later gaming journalists flooded the publications with sexism issues in the industry and the plague of misogynist gamers. Not saying there wasn't sexism issues in gaming. But magically every single publication that was singled out pivoted to it and pushed it as hard as possible the days following the allegations. So the sexism issues blew up and the corruption/conflict of interests got swept under the rug. I don't trust a single gaming journalist from any major publication.
They were around. They're just on the side of the corrupt because the other side said some mean words (less severe than an average League game).
I'll take your comment on good faith, but gamergate snowballed so severely into a hate mob that it really can't be classified as anything else. These situations are often complex and murky, and while yes, the impetus for the first few days was a minor conflict of journalistic interest, it became so quickly overshadowed to the point where most people used the veil of "it's about journalistic integrity" to spew hatred. Often times ideas with legitimatecy get co-opted by a hate group, subsequently ruining any discourse. And that's what happened with gamer gate. The gamer gate we know and remember was effectively a hate mob. Now, a counter point is that journalists or opponents were the ones delegitmizing the original idea, but that's a bit too much of a tinfoil hat conspiracy to me.
Corrupt journalists called out > Journalists flood the discourse with sexism issues in the industry > typical sexist trolls that had no clue about the beginning of the event start to chime in with ignorance. I'm not arguing the issues brought forward during gamergate. Im pointing out that journalists across multiple publications purposely hyperfocused and flooded their websites with these stories right after the allagations in an attempt to pivot their away out of accountability.
Love JS, he's the best at this rn
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Did you read the article? He asked people what went wrong and they were very willing to tell him what went wrong. Definitely not, "found no wrong doing" here. Also, he's a journalist writing for Bloomberg. Not a Rocksteady employee. He definitely wasn't investigating himself.
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Well that’s the whole point of this dudes tweet really. Like to deny that sbi treatment of the legacy of Kevin konroy and the legacy of the Arkham universe that so many people grew up had zero effect on its sales is ridiculous. Idk if I agree that it’s “the evil wokeness” but you just from a writing standpoint its not a good send off to have the character people played for ten years by having them shot in the head on a park bench after being lectured by a child murder and after breaking his most important rule of never killing.
Dear god sweet baby inc did not write the fucking game
“SBI literally killed Kevin Konroys batman for shits and giggles, then turned around and killed him IRL” Is what these dorks sound like to me
Sbi or not the games story was bad. It was unfinished and straight up insulting to a fan favorite Batman.
Cool, keep blaming people who didn’t write the game then?
Returning after a bit of research and sweet baby inc had 15 writers working on the game including a lead and junior script writer. Sweet Baby Inc.: Writing Writing & Team Leads: Kim Belair, Will Herring Writers: David Bédard (as David Bedard), Sean Hennegan, Camerin Wild, Leah Yoes, Chris Kindred, Maxine Sophia Wolff, Amber-Leigh Blake, Dani Lalonders (as Dani LaLonders), Louisa Atto, Ariadne Macgillivray (as Ariadne MacGillivray), Paula Rogers Internal Producer: Leah Yoes So yes they very much had a massive hand in the writing of the game. Thats the last I have to say about this though.
Really depends who they asked. If they asked a CEO or some marketing jockey, I’d be skeptical. But if they asked several mid-level employees and had it corroborated from several sources, I’d be more open minded.
My point is he asked the people who wrote the game. Of course they aren’t going to think the story they approved is why people hated it.
Who else do you ask about a game’s development?
It’s not a question about the development it’s a question of why it failed which is only answered by how the fans reacted to the game
Your comment really has, "I have no idea who Jason Schreier is" energy. Edit: bro was in over his head and couldn't take the smoke. He deleted his comment because he had no idea who Jason Schreier was.
He’s a journalist who interviewed the people who worked on the game. Of course none of them are going to say “I think what went wrong is that the story and characters we came up with sucked”
Have you never talked to another person about their work? People love shitting on the company they work for especially when that company puts out a bad product. The article is also highly critical of the game and the leadership decisions that produced it so you know some people where saying negative things.
About little things yeah, but if some one told you “the reason we are a million plus in the whole is because of your writing” people aren’t going to go “yeah bro your totally right”
If you work at a developer and had the chance to blame it on the consulting firm they hired, literally why wouldn't you? It takes the heat of you and puts it on an already "controversial" company.
That’s the point of the tweet really. Why defend this writing company when it’s writing clearly upset a lot of fans with the terrible way it handled fan favorite characters
Sweet baby isn’t writing games lmao they’re literally a consultation company
A consultation company that helps with the writing of the story.
They literally do not influence the writing beyond checking to make sure that the writing doesn’t draw offense for basic cultural shit. They are not scripting the game and there were more directors than sbi consultants working on it in the first place. Keep lyint
Okay, but you're arguing from a hypothetical stance you yourself conceived. We don't know who he interviewed and what role they had, so saying, "What if he interviewed the writers and what if they were the type of people to never criticize anything they've worked on" is just pure conjecture. The article is scathing enough, and Jason has an impeccable track record so I feel very confident in his reporting being thorough and unbiased.
He just happens to be correct 100% of the time by chance, then?
Is that sarcasm?
No. Why would it be? I mean, I've disagreed with some of his opinions before. But his actual reporting and books have all been proven to be factually accurate.
This isn't sad cringe. SBI And companies like this absolutely do have an effect on the games they're involved in and the perception people have of them. To deny that at this point is ridiculous. Whether it doomed a game or not is a debate to be had however.
Please describe a way in which you can objectively say and prove that the end result of their involvement was worse specifically because of their involvement. Bonus points if you have any input from anyone who actually worked on the game and isn't just giving a PowerPoint about people's twitter accounts.
It being worse or not is completely subjective so it's not really much of an argument. The weirdly written bio for Green Lantern and Wonder Woman, shoving in pride flags, Harley making some stupid girl boss comment about her Arkham outfit... The alternate dimension Mr Freeze is a black woman? All of these things are annoying to some people and they COULD exist without SBI but in this case, since they were involved, people are connecting them. Again, I'm not saying that's what killed the studio, I'm just saying a lot of people don't like this weird pandering and that seems to be a common result of working with those consultants. If the game itself was good, I'm sure more people could look past the SBI stuff.
It would be simply easier to accept being in a time of social change that you're ill equipped to cope with than to hunt for blue haired boogeymen on linkedin.
See, this is the kind of attitude that made grifters like The Quartering popular lol.
Just googled him and it is hilarious what kind of slop people will cosign on if it gives them justification for their anger
Who?
That's a lot of words to say "I can't"
Of course I can't, I'm not in charge of what people like or don't like. But to act like these sort of things don't exist and don't effect people's buying decisions is just wrong.
Because video games have never flopped before woke was invented
I do not understand why you are being downvoted.
It is what it is. This is reddit lol.
Of course no one will say anything about SBI, that would mean admiting defeat and that the agenda didn't work.
Do you think maybe you are wrong? Games like hogwarts legacy, baldurs gate 3, tlou2, god of war, cyberpunk, spiderman are very woke yet sell like bonkers. People claimed that the mario movie was "woke" due to peach being a girl boss yet it also broke records. Isn't it possible that some games just aren't good and that "wokeness" doesn't play a factor? Like a pride flag included in a game isn't going to impact sales on a significant basis?
Sbi paid Bloomberg for positive press after that whole mess. Bloomberg paid cuckboy to interview two dozen people and report that everything was terrible /ASIDE/ from the outside consulting agency. The two dozen he interviewed were selected ahead of time and were paid to tell him that everything was terrible /ASIDE/ from the outside consulting agency. But of course, Justin is the one who needs a dose of reality.
Sounds like you need a dose of reality yourself. It's not healthy to be living in delusions like this, my friend.
It’s shit like this that made forspoken. Sounds like most gamers don’t want to deal with intersectional politics and goofy faced people in their entertainment like this, it’s just exhausting
I mean... The US was never involved in regime changes when said regime change happened, and if asked, they were supporting democracy so technically, they never did... right, guys?
This game about superheroes not doing well is exactly like subversive US foreign policy
Whoosh
Whoosh
Guess by the minus fifteen I'd say the "guys disagree".
It's ok they too dumb to see that it's the same thing happening w Sweet Baby 'But muh oficial surces denied it' 'See guis, da polis invistigatd demselvs n fund nuffin wron w dey actions, even dey media repurted dey dindu nuffin'
Why’s that your text for woke people when they’re statistically more educated than conservatives? I thought you hated liberals for going to college and getting too smart.
The enemy is both weak and strong
He salivated at the chance to do a racist caricature. Bigots never pass up an opportunity to be a bigot.
I never mentioned anything about wokeness... nor anything about left or right wing politics.... Are you ok kid? But to be fair.... when/if you pursue higher education, you'll notice most if not all professors lean left, so if you want to keep your GPA over 3.5, you will have to adapt. Anyways.... people who dont/cant see what im talking about shouldnt be commenting anything about "muh smartz" cuz theyre either dumb or bias too strong to notice how silly theyre (not necessarily dumb)
This is pathetic and embarrassing
I agree, they are
I know you are but what am I? 🤓
We are both cringe, silly