There is a major scandal raging in the Western community, which threatens to develop into a second Gamergate. The dissatisfaction arose against the backdrop of the recent confrontation between Sweet Baby Inc and one of the curators at Steam.
Sweet Baby Inc is a popular company that advises game studios on “diversity, equality and inclusivity”. For example, she gave advice to developers God of War: Ragnarok and Alan Wake 2, how to make black characters more authentic. Many players accuse Sweet Baby of promoting wok culture, superficial representation and tokenism – practices where companies create only the appearance of racial or gender equality.
Against the background of popularity, a composite group appeared on Steam called Sweet Baby Inc Detected, on the page of which the games in which Sweet Baby Inc had a hand were noted. Company representatives attempted to “cancel” the group and urged other users to file a complaint with Valve. Ultimately, the curator’s audience grew from 1,200 to 270,000 subscribers.
But the network began to ignore the controversial statements made by Sweet Baby Inc. employees. to remember yourself. Felix Kramer, one of the company’s advisors, openly expressed his disdain for white people several years ago. “I had a nightmare that I was a white male gamer.”she wrote in 2014.
After this, a real confrontation between Sweet Baby Inc’s supporters and their opponents began online. Employees of Sweet Baby Inc were subjected to doxxing (publishing personal information without an individual’s consent), which attracted the attention of major publications and game studios. For example, Mary Kenney, deputy director of narrative at Insomniac Games, said players are vastly exaggerating the influence of Sweet Baby Inc, and The Guardian journalist Keza MacDonald called on the industry to fight. “extreme right-wing trolls”. The non-profit organization Take This, funded by the US government, called for resistance against all forms of harassment and also named Discord, Steam and X as the main platforms for abuse and harassment.
The news surrounding the scandal was actively discussed by Mark Kern, who worked on it World of Warcraft, Diablo2 and Starcraft. He recently stated that even large game companies do not always finance development out of their own pockets, and therefore have to turn to external companies. Sometimes such agreements would force developers to enter into contracts with consulting firms “to achieve gender balance”.
With words by Mark Kern responded even Elon Musk. The billionaire retweeted one of the stories about Gamergate 2 on his X with the words: “Wow”. Also Musk left comment under the video in which developer Dani Lalonders said she doesn’t hire white people to create “safety sphere”.
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Source: VG Times