In an age where more and more people are picking up gaming as a hobby, inclusivity is more important than ever; diversity can attract new gamers, and can open up a story to go somewhere completely new — and that is what Sweet Baby Inc stands for.
Recently, attention has been drawn to a group on Steam called “Sweet Baby Inc Detected” that seems dedicated to boycotting any games that have been touched by the company. The group has now surpassed 200,000 followers on the curator page and has over 80,000 members. So what’s their deal? Why has this company caused so much controversy, and are they at fault? Or is it a group of gamers on Steam taking issue with diversity?
What is Sweet Baby Inc?
First of all, it’s important to know exactly what Sweet Baby Inc does as a company, in order to understand what people’s problems are. The company’s website states that it “is a narrative development and consultation studio,” the people working there pretty much help game developers to be more diverse with characters, story, and writing. They’ve worked on some massive titles, including Alan Wake 2, Spider-Man 2, and God of War Ragnarök.
They’ve also worked on some really bad games, such as Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League; now, if people were mad at Sweet Baby Inc for that, I could understand. To be fair, it’s not really the dialogue or characters that were the worst parts of that game, so you couldn’t even pin the blame on the company for that. So what exactly is making people so upset?
What did Sweet Baby Inc do wrong?
If it isn’t obvious by now, the company didn’t really do anything wrong. The issue people have with it is that it’s “forcing” diversity, which is apparently an issue for some. The “Sweet Baby Inc Detected” group appeared on Steam at the end of January, making comments that were definitely in violation of Steam’s code of conduct. A reporter from Kotaku was able to infiltrate the group Discord, where they noted cases of casual sexism and some alt-right rhetoric. In the last couple of days, the creator has since gone on to delete posts on the Steam page after an influx of attention and mass reporting, which was encouraged by Sweet Baby employees.
The group was first brought to the general public’s attention through Chris Kindred, an employee of Sweet Baby Inc, who attempted to get the curator page taken down, according to Niche Gamer. In hindsight, this was probably a bad idea, as it gave more attention to the group than it had ever had before, and its follower count ballooned as a result. Kindred also got her X account limited for incitement of harassment.
At this moment in time, the “Sweet Baby Inc Detected” page is still up on Steam, although most of the discussion threads have either been deleted or locked. It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: Diversity isn’t ruining modern games — if a person can’t enjoy a game because the protagonist isn’t a white male, then that’s a reflection on them, not the game.