group offers diversity inclusion consulting, whatever that means

It usually means ensuring a lot of small details. For example if you have a native american character, they'd make sure you do not randomly pick a culture that doesn't fit what the character does or their background, that you don't show some non-native stereotypes, that you don't idolize them like in stories unless your specific story calls for that, etc etc.

You're supposed to work with consulting companies like these when you don't have people who can judge this on your own team, because it's so easy to get so many details wrong. Of course it'd be easier if your team already knows how to do it, sure. But if you can't, then it's the right step to get someone external who can help you not make a joke out of a character. Again, unless they're suppsoed to be a joke.

i fucking hate gaming magazines

kbin sweating nervously

Because Sweet Baby Inc is known for forcing a narrative and tokens into the writing, for the sake of diversity on the cost of quality of the story and the characters. A lot of people don't like that.

Now the issue is much bigger than that and I don't like to involve myself with it much, as the controversy attracts a lot of truly bigot people, who also want to stop SBI. So one automatically gets shoved into that corner. And this is exactly what SBI is abusing to their advantage. No one can stop them from destroying good games in fear of getting burned on the stack.

it didn’t say avoid apparently

It originally did, but once someone ran an article on it, people adviced the admin that his current reviews might afoul of steam policies, so they went back and revised all the reviews be neutral statements that SBI was involved, linking a source for each.

However, all the ratings on this curator are negative non-recommends, with SBI involvement as the stated reason. So it's hard to paint it as just a neutral list.

That said, there's nothing inherently wrong with that. If you want to avoid a company's games, that should be allowed.

Collecting lists related to a disenfranchised group or the aid of a disenfranchised group is a pretty big red flag of the actor's intentions, especially when that list gets passed around to corners of the internet that are well known to think the problem is not enough disenfranchisement.

4chan lost the right to complain about anything related to D&I in gaming and be treated as anything but subhuman slime after Gamergate.

If you read the list itself and the discussions about it, it's clearly a call for harassment (the list, that is), not just a simple listing.

Well it was essentially a boycott. If people will stop buying games made by them, then publishers will stop hiring them and the company will go bankrupt. So I can understand the motivation for it.

Now, I think the whole scandal is really manufactured. The company goal is basically to provide contractor writers to help with game development. They try to differentiate themselves by claiming that they write content that is inclusive, which can help make games for a wider populace.

The hate though is misdirected. People are claiming that the games are bad, because the company made them bad, when in reality if publisher prefers to hire contractor writers rather than hire their own, they likely don't care about quality and just want to milk the franchise.

I actually had no idea bout this scandal until yesterday, when it was talked by a streamer while playing Cyberpunk 2077. The guy complained how other games are ruined by SweetBaby. What is golden for me is that he said he loves Cyberpunk 2077, that it's very fun game, but in the game you have straight, gay, bi, trans NPC characters. You can even be gay, bi, trans yourself.

The game has loser men, and powerful women (I mean the NUSA president is a women) similarly, you have black characters that are very powerful and honorable, you have a powerful Asian woman in DLC that has skills that you can't surpass. I mean the game is the wokest of woke, yet still "it is fun" for him.

To me it was perfect example that it is all bullshit, and really what makes game great is the effort put in not whether it is woke/anti-woke.

Well... 4chan is using it as a list of games to avoid. Cant blame them, they've all been stinkers.

I want to add that I'm not against inclusivity. But I am against crappy games.

it didn’t say avoid

It quite literally says "Not Recommended" for each of them.

I'm not sure how you interpret that as anything other than "avoid".

The aspect that's getting lost in all this is that the curator has basically put up a hit list of games for people to review bomb just for associating with a company. The curator has no evidence on the level of involvement SBI had with the game but they don't recommend the game based on them being involved at all.

They have taken something small and weaponised it so now it's harming game devs. No one has any evidence on how SBI were involved with any of the games they've listed on their website beyond vague mentions of "narrative" or "character development".

The worst part is, I'm not even surprised by this.

It has a "do not recommend" next to each game on the list, and it's used for people to review bomb games and cry about this company on the Steam forums.

I gotchu fam, no worries 👍🏻