Video Game Developers Ditch Sweet Baby Inc.
You know all those social media posts about cutting toxic people out of your life and the lack of guilt that should be associated with such? Perhaps the video game industry should consider it. During their appearance on Tuesday Night’s Main Event (which you can watch on the Geeks + Gamers YouTube channel every Tuesday night and catch past episodes right here), former Blizzard producer Mark Kern – who goes by Grubbs on social media – and Kabrutus, creator of the Sweet Baby Inc. Detected curator, discussed the gaming industry’s reaction to Sweet Baby Inc.’s implosion and the backlash from gamers. You can watch the clip below, courtesy of Geeks + Gamers Clips:
What Kabrutus said in that clip is a huge deal. First, it means that Sweet Baby Inc. Detected and the wave of anger at the gaming industry and its “consulting firms” is having a much bigger impact than most people likely realize. It’s so bad that developers who’ve hired Sweet Baby Inc. are re-writing their games and asking Kabrutus to leave them off Sweet Baby Inc. Detected’s list (which he’s being responsible about and investigating because he takes this seriously). They know that gamers trust Kabrutus, and he’s so respected now that developers are coming to him for help. That’s a tremendous shift in the power dynamic, especially in light of Kotaku’s slow and satisfying implosion, and it should encourage you if you feel like your voice can’t be heard.
It also means that Sweet Baby Inc. has become a radioactive brand, to the point where a developer will spend the money to have their influence scrubbed from a game. That company is not long for this world if the video game industry sees it as a liability. And to be fair, it’s not just Kabrutus and Sweet Baby Inc. Detected; it’s the flaming car wreck that Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League turned into before it was even released. That game was a bigger disaster than Marvel’s Avengers, and the latter was so bad it was delisted three years after its debut. Suicide Squad has been out for less than two months, and its price keeps dropping. That failure has been attributed almost entirely to Sweet Baby Inc.’s influence on the game, and despite weeks of games journalists playing defense and a PlayStation employee trying to cancel a YouTuber for being critical of them (which would be funny if it wasn’t so despicable), nobody wants to be next.
And that’s why Mark Kern’s suggestion is the next logical step for video game developers. Distance yourselves from these evil wackos, and do it publicly. And I don’t just mean Sweet Baby Inc.; make it clear that you aren’t using woke consulting firms at all and are abandoning your agenda, as Ryan says at the end. Appeal to the people your industry royally pissed off and tell them you’ve heard them and you’re going to change. Because Kabrutus is right, gamers want to like video games. But they aren’t going to support whatever compromised, joyless, condescending social engineering lecture is thrown at them. If a game is good, or at least looks like it will be good, they’ll buy it. That the gaming industry is bigger than movies, TV, and comic books proves that gamers want to support their passion. It’s on the developers to give them something worth supporting.
