It kind of was almost legally extortion, because apparently SBI was more like: SBI: "Give us money to ruin your game... or you may just see a few hit pieces from our journalist friends about you and your game."
There is a reason why Asian game devs succeed where western game devs fail. Elden ring and Stellar Blade are good example. Fromsoftware created their own community that plays their games and sell them to community and they established that community for 11 years long. Stellar Blade succeeded and created community that loves the game and with time of they release more games, they eventually will make good products and succeed.
The worst part is that the woke people that actually do play video games (or watch other people play them most likely) are the type of people that will literally overlook everything wrong with a game and think that the only reason you don’t like the game is because you’re a bad person. Even if you tried to explain to them why you don’t like the game they will most likely just refuse to listen and then try to gaslight you and other people into thinking you are worse than (insert dictator here)
Extortion is the correct word in this case. SBI was implying that if you dont pay us, youll get canceled. Meaning they(SBI) would be the ones doing the canceling through their manipulation of other companies against the company that didnt pay them for their "service."
Reminder for anyone who has forgotten this already, the SBI allies, several games urinalists, proceeded to write articles citing anonymous sources "How Black Myth: Wukong Developer’s History of Sexism Is Complicating its Journey to the West". Their threats are very much real.
@@OmegaPhlare People that play video games and people that read video game articles are two distinct groups. Even if there is some overlap, nobody from the first group can take these articles seriously. It's a nothing burger.
@@youtubeenjoyer1743 counterpoint: a lot of game companies are publicly traded and investors definitely read articles about companies (or at least they read the headlines). Reputation is incredibly important for all companies regardless if they are public or not. Reputation is what determines consumer trust, and consumer trust is what brings in sales. The implication that they will attempt to harm it (regardless of whether or not the method is effective) is definitely still a credible threat and not an empty one. It's definitely extortion, at least in principle, though the law may not cover this exact method.
@@mrSaber79 the consumer in this case is the gamer, and gamers do not care about these articles. Maybe you are right in the short term, but ultimately any good investor can observe the negative or lack of correlation between such articles and consumer trust.
@@jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj454 Consultation companies' (Sweet Baby Inc.) main job to ensure that the company that hired them get a good ESG and DEI scores. Having good scores on those make you an attractive prospect for investing thus games influenced by them are made for investors. What you're referring to is a more direct and corporate approach. They nickel and dime you for everything you're worth, scam you and use every psychological tricks all for maximizing profits for their investors thus those games are also made for investors. Both are bad.
@@boooomerwang Blackrock, and a few other firms, established standards for Investment at preferred rates, and compliance with those standards is what you're seeing.
@@jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj454 Consultation services like Sweet Baby Inc are hired by companies to ensure good ESG and DEI scores. Having high scores on those makes the company an attractive prospect for investing thus the products(games) are made for investors. What your referring to is a more direct approach on corpo greed. They nickel and dime the consumers and use every psychological trick to maximize profits. And who benefits on that, the investors thus it's, also a game for investors. Both are bad.
@@demandred1957 so far we know of from DEIDetected: Sweet Baby Inc Weird Ghosts Hit Detection GaymerX Black Girl Gamers Internal Diversity in Games - DIG I hear there is also a company called: Melonin-Gamers
This right here is what worries me. Sweet Baby does need to keep receiving their due, but I'm concerned they're also playing a sort of "martyr" role. By doing so taking attention away from other consulting firms that may be doing the same things.
It's not an empty threat. It is extortion. "Pay us money or our people in the industry will make you regret it" notably with lies and hit pieces in the media. It's no different than protection rackets trashing places that don't pay protection money.
There's also been reviews for Black Myth: Wukong that have used some at-best questionable reasons to score the game in the 70s or 80s and brought the Metacritic score down to an 82 as of the time I'm writing this comment, most notably Screen Rant's, which was written by an outside consultant (makes you think) which cited a so-called, "Lack of diversity," as a negative point.
It's empty because you have to be able to make good on it to make it substantial. They not only failed to get money from the company but their smear campaign failed utterly making Wukong one of the best selling games of all time. So you are incorrect, it was only attempted extorsion because they could do nothing to them.
@@ZeroBeat1 Sure, and doing so, did no good. They can talk all they want, but once they write down and publish it, they are tied to that opinion forever, and Metacritic hasn't been a true source of what's good for a very long time because there are 1000s of movies and video games on there that get great audience scores and sell very well despite subpar critic scores.
@@ImpendingJoker But what if all this wasn't known? What if this happened in 2023? Would those articles talking about it still just be ignored by everyone?
Game Company Hiring Consultant = Whoever Hires a Consultant Doesn't Know what They Themselves should be doing in the games industry, And should not be there, Go be C-Suite Personnel for a Hot Dog Cart
As a current working IT consultant, if you ever require our services and more than 50% of your requirement does not involve any technical prowess, you are an idiot.
there are plenty of reasons to hire a consultant company, even if you wanted dei bs inserted into something for some reason. I think 7 million is a bit much just to add gay and black people though
There will be a ton of devs come out in the next months with exactly this excuse ..."We didn´t know what SBI would do (later on)" . SBI had their mission statement on their flag (and homepage) since 2018, basically unchanged. Kim Belair´s (CEO) had the first "terrify you marketing department with what happens if you do not hire us" speech in 2019 at the Womenize Keynote and later in 2021 at the GDC. Everyone knew this, if they haven´t done their research they EARNED their failure.
it's strange that games they worked on failed, and yet studios kept hiring them. you'd have thought they'd have connected the dots, but apparently not. some studios had a game fail immediately because of sbi and then hired them for the next one... which failed
@@Elden_Lean the hr and publicity departments convinces the higher ups that this would "look bad" if they don't hire these consultants to look good (aka gae and lame)
It's basically like with cinema. It used to work like this: -movie doesn't do good -producers learn from it -try to make the next movies different Now it's like this: -movie doesn't do good -producers insult the audience, trying to shame them into liking their product -next movie is a carbon copy of all the mistakes done with the first one "The client is always right" is a phrase that should die and rot in an unmarked grave. "The client is always right ABOUT WHAT THEY LIKE" should be treated as gospel, especially in the entertainment industry. All they produce is UNNECESSARY, if the audience doesn't like it they can easily survive without it so DO BETTER.
Yeah, and even when you politely tell the client that ehat they like isn't there for sale, they should wake up and see "wait, almost nobody wants what we're selling... Everyone keeps avoiding us" but introspection is in the negative for these.
The full quote was never that the client is always right. The full quote is: The customer is always right, in matters of taste. Either way, the sentiment makes sense.
How is threatening to have the entire mainstream gaming "news" industry wright hit pieces about a game to try and destroy it unless the devs hire your company for millions of dollars NOT extortion? What else would you call it? a protection racket? blackmail?
if a roofer looks at your roof and says "you need to have this repaired, or your roof will collapse" is that extortion/blackmail? they will defend their consultation as "professionals in avoiding cancelation". they offered their professional opinion: hire them & they'll guide the devs past the hidden landmines of liberal correctness. i think they can weasel out by claiming the bad result is something that will happen on its own. they're just a small group of consultants, they don't have the sway to cancel anyone.
@PyrokineticFire1 if the roofer has a ladder and sledge hammer with the implication that they will destroy the roof or have their associates do it, then yes. That's extortion
Not really a baseless threat when they’ve got gaming news publications trying to say the company that rejected SBI is problematic. Based off a couple anonymous social media posts from someone who supposedly worked there. Just because it isn’t working doesn’t mean the threats not real.
Then there is Black Myth Wukong getting big hype despite being flamed on every game journo site. Also Hogwarts Legacy and Stellar Blade, with Suicide Squad and Capes on the other side. There's nothing to worry about as long as you make a game for your actual customers, not to meet woke quotas.
@@anhnguyenhoang210 thi g is these people are also inside these game companies, pushing this to the higher ups. Most companies are infected, hence most companies have woke trash in it.
No, that is EXACTLY what it means. SBI is just like Russia. Big talk with nothing to back it up. So they are a toothless wolf and I am tired of your bots trying to make SBI more substantial than they are.
I don’t think it was an empty threat. Look at how many articles tried to paint them as problematic to some level. They just underestimated how much gamers don’t care about the gaming media’s opinions.
yeah because the people who write gaming media suck at games. If it was written by actual gamers it would be a different story but the people writing those articles have never touched a controller outside of work
People are hired to write articles. They hoped to write political ones but got game ones instead. They need to at least have a basic understanding of how its played but they can be very casual about gaming because their job requires being a better writer than a gamer.
@@williamcothrum9199 Listening to a game journalist's opinion on a game is like getting advise on the best place to eat from someone who's lived off IV nutrition their entire lives.
@@rathalos28able if they're irrelevant, why are we always so adamant in calling them out? Because anyone with a brain Can tell you that propaganda's a powerful tool. They lie, always, and it always costs us.
It’s funny to watch videos from 10-12 years ago talking about how the games industry was becoming like Hollywood and seeing how right they were, but at the same time how they couldn’t imagine how far it would go in a decade as both Hollywood and western devs begin to see the fallout of their business decisions..
@@thehatter9400 Well as AAA crumbles, indie devs rise. I do think there's still good stuff to play still releasing, but it's not from the big dogs (at least in the West). I myself still have to catch up on games like Animal Well, "Crab-Souls" and Penny's Big Breakaway.
Let's put it this way about Spiderman 2: Everything good about it is copy-pasted from the previous game. The director even gloated about the fact he went out of his way to put in MORE of the shit people didn't like in the first one, like the Mary Jane stealth missions, and long-ass unskippable walking simulator sections. And that's not even getting to the SBI shit.
@@leargamma4912 this. The only good parts were with Venom, and only because Venom as a concept is cool, not because the story for It was any good either.
Activists seek to either convert or k.ill. They are happy customers aren't buying because their intent was never to make money, it was to destroy the companies they infiltrated.
Spider-Man 2 was crap the mj segments were forced and dumb And they made Peter into a whiny baby he’s always crying and apologizing when he shouldn’t be And they did the worst bully maguire imitation Oh yeah and they made mj ugly when she’s supposed to be the “girl next door”
I disagree, Extortion is the perfect word. It was basically "It'd be a shame if everyone thinks your product is every type of "ist" and you are every "phobe", but if you pay us, we'll say and you get to say it was marked diverse by us" Implication being they'd damage it's reputation pre-launch. Consider Sweet Babys founder literally advocating to threaten devs and publishers in this manner- she's documented on video say it. It's also worth mentioning that the games media then, "coincidentally" then accussed the game and the devs of various things, including toxic work environment and sexism. We know games journalism is figuratively (and sometimes literally) in bed with these kinds of activists. It's not hard then to consider Sweet Baby as a type of mafia-esque racket, that wields games journalism as it's "enforcing arm"
It definitely did have a sweetb feel from the one stream I saw. Playing as a forspoken type female character for more than half the game than actually as alan wake for one thing was a turn off
@@shib5267 critically acclaimed by who? The jornos that we know have been caught being paid to say they like games even when they're not so great, right? I watched 2 different streamers play it, and they both had a lot to say about how it was just a mid game. I tend to trust streamers playing the games more so now than reviewers
legobutts is one of the people who worked with (and possibly screwed) Zoe Quinn the summer that GG blew up. The two of them ddos'd Kerns' charity event and then ran their own. And I'm pretty sure they are female.
@@RyuSaarva might be every triple A game, I do not think most double a or indies need more than 1 milion to get a pretty good tidy sum. And then you add the microtransaction and more so. It is pretty absurd, a million sales is not a small normal.
If you are talking about Alan Wake, thats mostly Epic's Fault. Epic takes a cut of the money, so they couldnt recover all yet. Just wait for Steam release and the game will sell more
@@Pherim_ except, Epic funded it, so them not seeing earnings from this is hilarious. The studio got paid, but their lack of success is not encouraging more funding.
@@charlesws7825 If SBI or any DEI group did go and maliciously destroyed/"cancel" the devs for mearly not working with them, said devs would be in their right to sue SBI and every DEI group who helped destroy their company, for defamation and/or slander.(depending on how the DEI groups went about it.
SBI: "Hey, listen! See this game?! The developers of this game didn't hire us! That means isn't DEI compliant! Don't buy it!" People who never would have bought the game even before being told not to buy it: "We didn't want it in the first place, but now we're not gonna buy it even harder! Look! Watch how we aren't buying the game we already weren't going to buy! Take that!"
ESG Investments thats why. In order to get those investments the score has to be high enough, DEI is part of the scoring and can be used to get a score good enough for cheap big investments. Consulting companies like SBI are a way to get good scores in terms of DEI
"Extortion is the practice of obtaining benefit (e.g., money or goods) through coercion. Extortion is sometimes called the "protection racket" because the racketeers often phrase their demands as payment for "protection" from (real or hypothetical) threats from unspecified other parties." Extortion is the correct word.
I got to know of the all "Sweet Baby Inc" mafia a few months ago but that has already stopped by hand from purchasing games i was willing to buy.. If your title support SBI or any similar DEI company you won't get my money. arrrr
Game devs can denounce sweet baby all they want, but the proof is in the pudding. If the game is woke, then it doesnt really matter if you say you dont like sweet baby, because your actions are saying you believe in the ideology of sweet baby.
devs dont really choose what games to make, they only choose how to implement features descisions regarding what the game should be and for who is always made closer to or at the top of the company (unless its a very small company, such as indie studios)
@@EnderCrypt it doesnt matter. We have to go with scorched earth. You interact with DEI agents? fuck you and your entire company. You have to be firm with idiots
The way you wrote this. This could be looked at in two ways. This could be seen as instructions, from BlackRock to Sweet Baby Stinc. And SBI is like, "Understood. We will continue to do so. Or as sarcasm.
"The customer is always right" in matters of taste. That last bit always gets left out. We decide what we like, even if it's ass to someone else. And guess what? In matters of taste, we don't want to touch this dog water game. And remember, Sweet Baby Inc. isn't the only one out there. There are more. Stay vigilant.
I'm a black guy and I dropped Alan wake in the beginning when the main character made that smug generic rebellious whamen remark at the beginning about her superior.
It's amazing how easy it's to call out their wokery shitfest, but people will gaslight us with "oh it's perfectly normal, you're exaggerating" assuming they feel like being nice that day. "Lol you feel threatened incel?" And then wonder why those games flop.
Christopher Judge played kratos, that’s no “Greek” and the mans got own hell of a voice and presence no matter the project. And yeah, TC Carson the first VA for kratos, not Greek either, also put in stellar performances. Alana was not wrong.
@@Kyrus86in North America most people don't consider Greeks to be "white". In Europe everyone does. Most of the rhetoric in North America is that anyone with a slight tan isn't white. When people talk about diversity, they will say things like "it is nice to see some diverse people in here like Mexicans, Spanish people, Greeks, etc. instead of a bunch of white people."
“Pay us for our time and we’ll do our best to review material to avoid rando controversial bs” VS “pay us millions in advance or we will blacklist your game for being evil”
Self-righteous weirdos like them always end up outing themselves, because in their own eyes they're the "good guys" and know better than everyone else.
It's almost like telling people they're racist when they aren't doesn't work, when those people actively network with each other. It works in news outlets and social media platforms, where the interaction is surface level. But when you're dealing with many close-knit groups of people that willingly interact on a frequent basis, and can have meaningful conversations, then the extortion falls flat. Hell, vtubers demonstrate how close gamer friends are every time they collab. They play together for a few hours, and they will willingly defend each other from heinous outside forces. ... like sweet baby inc.
Not just publisher for that one. Devs and yea the owner of that company for some reason approved of Gollum a 3d game that the devs had like 0 experience in and also bought that expensive license…which has now caused them to apparently close their dev division.
GOW Ragnarok i think saying that was a good game is a lie actually, the gameplay is the same as 2018s with a "story" being a complete shit Yes It has good visuals, voice acting a music, but these in my opnion are not enough to call a good game
Yeh the combat is button mashing through hordes, unnecessary right elements, collec a thon side stuff and cheap dark souls esque boss fights loll also, why tg can't I increase FOV
Imo it suffers from the Borderlands 3 issue. Good enough gameplay, shitty story, with Spider-Man 2 being far worse by comparison. It does everything a sequel SHOULD do. . . Except the story writing is a step backwards
Gameplay was identical to the 2018 game yes, but that's not a bad thing because if the combat were changed or button inputs were done differently, people would complain. Muscle memory is a thing, so people who spent countless hours learning how to play a certain way and the various nuances of how to parry or dodge, etc. it would be detrimental to the game's popularity if they went a different direction in that sense. But on the story front, yeah Ragnarok had a lot of elements that just didn't jive with the Norse mythological stories at all, and the pacing of it was worse compared to the first installment thanks to the DEI token character Angrboda. Yes let's take a random character from the stories and make her black for no reason at all other than to check a box to satisfy the woke mob and make the DEI investors (Blackrock and Vanguard) happy, and then have her featured in a USELESS section of the game where you play as Atreus who has to do all of these stupid meaningless tasks like feeding her yak and other nonsense that have NOTHING to do with advancing the story of the game and just wastes your time. That portion I could easily do without, but the rest of the game is pretty solid.
16:24 Alana, you’re behind the curve on this one-everyone agrees with the sentiment you have, but the problem is that a lot of industry people and activists spent several years pushing for VA casting to be tied to the race (or perceived race) of the characters. So now, it’s an industry standard that Voice Actors need to match the race and ethnicity of the characters they’re voicing. Look up Rev’s videos involving ProZD to get a better idea of what’s going on.
Yep it essentially falls under the whole "cultural appropriation" BS they're so obsessed with. This VA thing all began when it was discovered that the VA for Apu on the Simpsons wasn't of Indian (South Asian not Native American for clarification) descent and was in fact a white guy, so they had to get a different VA to voice the character.
the only thing I remember from Alan Wake 2 was that she had to make a point of saying she is Swedish African American and the blouse that her white Swedish mom made for her. they thought this was so important to the narrative and they even pointed it out in the making of. What about the game itself? irrelevant to the sweater.
The only thing I know about Alan Wake 2 is from Kirsche. She did stream playing it right after it came out because she was excited about it, but she ended up HATING it, and dropped it pretty early. I remember she was legitimately pissed when it won an award at The Game Awards. I've never played it though, so I don't know how it actually is. I will also say, as a fan of the old God of War games, I personally think the new God of War games are kinda shit. The gameplay simply does not compare to the old games, and, in my opinion, Kratos' the way Kratos has changed as a character from the old games to the new ones just doesn't make sense.
Alan Wake II not selling well is more of an "Epic" problem than a Sweet Baby Inc problem, I think. Epic exclusivity + the "Epic-Marketing Black Hole" have ruined the sales of many games.
eh, I disagree. Alan Wake have definitely been touched by SBI or DEI nonsense. It became too hollywoody if that make sense, which is why a lot of people were put off by it. It sucks and also in the game awards it was given too much attention which felt fake.
@@itdas7157okay, why did TLOU2 win the game awards? Easy enough to answer: they're rigged. Devs paid to have them win the awards. If they took the audience into account, TLOU2 wouldn't have been anywhere on the board.
16:50 yeah "forced accent" are a big DEI tell. A character don't need to just be a certain race, it also need to "sound a certain race" (according to far left biggots). A good example of that is the upcoming Space Marine 2 game. They not only had to shove a black character in the trio of playable character, but need to make sure everyone knows he is black even with a helmet on by givinh him the crigiesy and most carricatural ugandan accent.
Normally I don't mind seeing a black man in a military set up, but that's interesting here: Isn't there a Legion made entirely of huge black men that are the friendliest faction under the Empire of Mankind?
@@denkerbosu3551 The salamanders are obsidian black, mostly with Caucasian features, not "afro black" despite what a lot of people are trying to pretend they are.
That is debatable af because space marines can be recruited from nearly anywhere in the galaxy (even from criminal gangs) Its literally a non issue that you're being a snowflake about, just like a woketard. Already preordered SM2 since it looks like a massive step up from the first in every single respect. TL;DR: Cope.
@@Mare_Man I love that cope the new "fans" that showed up since 8th love to spew. Yeah, sure buddy. Suddenly having the ultramarines be the most diverse cast EVER is totally "not forced", and having the token black guy sound like a Wakandan is also totally not forced, because don't you know, sounding like a caricature of a Ugandan is apparently genetic for black people.
SBI doesn't attach more recent titles to their profile because they explicitly don't want you to know what they are currently working on. It really speaks for itself.
I still don’t know how a very niche story/puzzle/Horror ? game got so many awards at the Game Awards… Also I think the most notable SBI thing about the new GOW games are a lot of the random black “Good” characters in Norse mythology, while all the “Bad” characters and their minions are exclusively white people.
@@BasedWukongI’m sorry you’re so brain dead you found the worst god of war good. Almost everyone unanimously says it sucks. And are you an edgy teen who hates personal growth because Kratos is still Kratos but he is more mature and has learned to calm down but will still kill a mother fucker.
I only remember angrabodia being black? And one of the main villains in her chapter was her grandmother who was black, so no not all black people were good. And yes if you remember from literally every other game in the series all the gods suck.
idc if some companies' games had "minimal" interaction with SBI, the backlash is still warranted. You can't act blindsided when a company you consulted with starts developing some VERY VOCAL backlash from the very demographic you're trying to sell to. You can choose to either sever ties with said company and condemn their actions, restore some faith from your customers, or you can just hide your ties with them but keep working with them until your customers find out and kick you to the curb. You can't make a business by not giving your customers what they want, let alone ridicule them for not wanting what you're selling.
I honestly find it hard to find "good" games to buy. It's like nothing good comes out these days. I played Elden ring and Baldurs gate 3, which I really enjoyed. Other than that I didn't buy anything. I tend to hold off until reviews come out, and almost everytime I end up not buying because of them. Wether it's intrusive microtransactions or premature release... There's always something. Battlefield 2042 is the first one that comes to mind. I literally needed a game priced gift idea for christmas. I didn't end up asking for it as a gift, and asked a spare controller instead. My controller wasn't even broken yet.
There are still good games. But waiting for reviews and researching before purchase is simply just being an informed customer and what a lot of people should really start doing as well.
@@talkingtakotaco8611 Absolutely. I think cod went downhill because people started buying the games every year, regardless of wether they were good or not. I really liked Black ops 1. I've done everything there is on that game. I'm not against DLC either. For a game like that I bought it, but I haven't bought a cod in many years now.
15:12 Problem is that if it was the other way round Sweet Baby Inc (and those like them) would try to damage the reputation and financial success of those responsible.
15:32 yeah I think anyone who has a good voice for the character should get the role but for a while some VA's were saying people should match the roles (they were actually mad that white people were voicing non white characters), which was spinning off from actors upset white poeple were taking 'non white rolls' like Scarlett Johansson in Ghost in the Shell
Remember to blacklist the individuals involved, otherwise they'll just make another consultant company when this one folds so they can keep ruining the industry.
Christopher Judge is an amazing actor and VA. I love his voice and he is truly complete opposite IRL person than Kratos. He is a hilarious jokester who is always smiling and its extremely good natured. I missed the chance to see him at a con and I wish I took the time to go there, even if I paid just go to get his signature and tell him how awesome he is. Christopher takes his roles seriously but off script, he's a great guy who just wants to have fun.
If I remember correctly during the Valhalla dlc when kratos talks to his old self apparently they were gonna have judge voice the old kratos but he when against that so they left the old kratos silent during that scene.
the "goog" games are only selling throug thier brand names. i played spinderman cause the fierst game was fun and the gameplay of the second was fun too BUT the Inclusivity in spiderman 2 is quite well done imho ... ragnarok i missed so far and might be ending up not playing it at all cause ... a black person in north mythology ? imho only due to SBI .... games should be about fun and no political agenda and realworld stoff when a game dont take place an enviremnt nearly the same as we are living in, like spiderman does
Honestly, with Capes, finding out about Sweet Baby wasn't the final nail in the coffin, the game was already buried in the coffin, they just dug it up and put another nail in it for good measure before reburying it.
13:51 The full line is "Customer is always right in matters of taste", does not mean you need to bend over backwards to every karenxir who demands you change your whole business to cater to their political worldview
Companies need to just focus on hiring the best people they can instead of just filling out a checklist for diversity. Saying that, if they go that route diversity will eventually come in naturally. I work at a place where it's pretty diverse, but does not sacrifice in quality to get there.
There's that gaming journalist lady as well from that rather iconic/infamous rant, who is just super antagonistic to anyone who even questions why they are being questioned about "woke agendas". Why does everyone need to defend themselves by being so aggressive and accusatory to the other party. The Internet has killed off the moral high ground.
1:51 its only a semi-empty threat just a couple weeks after they turned SBI down nearly every major "game journalism" site wrote an article about how sexist the company was based on a comment that they knew was mistranslated and never mentioned gender or sexuality/ sexual preference. It is a threat because in the past (before the "wizard game"), these kinds of articles could end a game before day one, and the people engaging in this behavior keep thinking 'this time it will work'.
The Alan Wake situation in particular is upsetting. Remedy had a very thoughtful way of making their games, where even what you'd normally consider "filler" or "background" was done with intention. Sticky notes and signs and graffiti that you'd just walk past without thinking, were done with purpose and enforced the lore and story, even across games, and not just thrown together. Which is why when something in a preview found in another game ended up changing (and in a DEI direction), fans felt this was intentional as well... to appease the consulting firm's push for a modern audience. :\ Every retort I've seen always say "it wasn't a canon event", "it was only up for less than a minute", "it was just a preview", etc, would be fine for other game companies. But this company was supposed to be different in how they did things.
15:20-ish, that was case back in the day of like, ps2/xbox/ps3/360. Hire people best suited for the role, and that doesn't exist anymore. All this politically correct crap is harming the games industry, it's already killed Hollywood. I think that's why a lot of people have nostalgia for older games, especially those who are caught in the middle of the culture war.
We can see whether games are financial successes or not . Steam play numbers are public and copies sold on other platforms are usually publicly estimated. Studio finances after they’ve only released one or two games are pretty good metric too to see how their products are selling.
and christopher judge isnt greek anyways.. i dont know where chat got that from.. hes from Chulak like his father the previous first prime of Apophis...sorry i couldnt help myself..but not greek
the controversy with GOW Ragnarok was mainly about two things (iirc): 1) the character Angrboda, the future wife of Loki, was made into a black girl instead of a norse (aka white) girl. another case of "re-interpreting" myth but through the "modern/DEI" lens. to put into perspective they introduced/kept Freyja, queen of the Valkyries, as norse-white in both games, so why did they choose not do the same for Angrboda? well, as stated, "DEI" lens. 2) they made Thor into an unflattering obese man similar to how they did Chris Hemsworth in Thor: Love and Thunder. this was not well received due to people expecting Thor to be as intimidating and strong as Kratos was (despite the previous game showing Kratos getting bodied by Baldur, a dude 2/3rds his size and arguably half as muscular, but tbf Baldur had the whole "I can't feel pain" shit going for him; that being said, in the final release they did make him strong enough to beat and revive Kratos in their first battle)
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SBI: "Gives us money to ruin your game.. Or else"
Wukong devs: "No"
*insert gigachad meme and theme*
I still find it insulting that they had the gall to try that crap.
*Phonk intensifies*
SBI: "We're going to call you Racists!"
Wukong Devs: *Jonah Jameson Laughing*
Cool of them, but they did have to follow the PCC guidelines or else, so...
It kind of was almost legally extortion, because apparently SBI was more like:
SBI: "Give us money to ruin your game... or you may just see a few hit pieces from our journalist friends about you and your game."
Devs should stop making games for people who don't care about video games. Should be common sense.
Actually, they're doing the same thing hollyweird is, making stuff for people that don't exist.
Its 2024. Common sense is a myth from the old gods.
There is a reason why Asian game devs succeed where western game devs fail. Elden ring and Stellar Blade are good example. Fromsoftware created their own community that plays their games and sell them to community and they established that community for 11 years long. Stellar Blade succeeded and created community that loves the game and with time of they release more games, they eventually will make good products and succeed.
The worst part is that the woke people that actually do play video games (or watch other people play them most likely) are the type of people that will literally overlook everything wrong with a game and think that the only reason you don’t like the game is because you’re a bad person.
Even if you tried to explain to them why you don’t like the game they will most likely just refuse to listen and then try to gaslight you and other people into thinking you are worse than (insert dictator here)
Agreed. But how many people these days have common sense? Not that many to be honest. I blame human society and human ignorance.
Extortion is the correct word in this case. SBI was implying that if you dont pay us, youll get canceled. Meaning they(SBI) would be the ones doing the canceling through their manipulation of other companies against the company that didnt pay them for their "service."
Reminder for anyone who has forgotten this already, the SBI allies, several games urinalists, proceeded to write articles citing anonymous sources "How Black Myth: Wukong Developer’s History of Sexism Is Complicating its Journey to the West". Their threats are very much real.
Nice place you got here. Would be a shame if something were to happen to it.
@@OmegaPhlare People that play video games and people that read video game articles are two distinct groups. Even if there is some overlap, nobody from the first group can take these articles seriously. It's a nothing burger.
@@youtubeenjoyer1743 counterpoint: a lot of game companies are publicly traded and investors definitely read articles about companies (or at least they read the headlines). Reputation is incredibly important for all companies regardless if they are public or not. Reputation is what determines consumer trust, and consumer trust is what brings in sales. The implication that they will attempt to harm it (regardless of whether or not the method is effective) is definitely still a credible threat and not an empty one. It's definitely extortion, at least in principle, though the law may not cover this exact method.
@@mrSaber79 the consumer in this case is the gamer, and gamers do not care about these articles. Maybe you are right in the short term, but ultimately any good investor can observe the negative or lack of correlation between such articles and consumer trust.
Games made for investors and not for gamers always never ends well.
id rather games be made for investor than makes made for agenda's game used to just rip you off now they suck and rip you off
@@jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj454 Consultation companies' (Sweet Baby Inc.) main job to ensure that the company that hired them get a good ESG and DEI scores. Having good scores on those make you an attractive prospect for investing thus games influenced by them are made for investors.
What you're referring to is a more direct and corporate approach. They nickel and dime you for everything you're worth, scam you and use every psychological tricks all for maximizing profits for their investors thus those games are also made for investors.
Both are bad.
@@jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj454 i need a translation for that. your english is not english-ing.
@@boooomerwang Blackrock, and a few other firms, established standards for Investment at preferred rates, and compliance with those standards is what you're seeing.
@@jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj454 Consultation services like Sweet Baby Inc are hired by companies to ensure good ESG and DEI scores. Having high scores on those makes the company an attractive prospect for investing thus the products(games) are made for investors.
What your referring to is a more direct approach on corpo greed. They nickel and dime the consumers and use every psychological trick to maximize profits. And who benefits on that, the investors thus it's, also a game for investors.
Both are bad.
Don't forget sbi is only one of many dei consultants in the industry
Gotta find them all...
It's a start. Once the normies recognize one rat they will have an easier time identifying another
@@demandred1957 so far we know of from DEIDetected:
Sweet Baby Inc
Weird Ghosts
Hit Detection
GaymerX
Black Girl Gamers
Internal
Diversity in Games - DIG
I hear there is also a company called:
Melonin-Gamers
Yeah. People have made Sweet Baby into a scapegoat for everything that's wrong with current video games, but they're a symptom, not the cause.
This right here is what worries me. Sweet Baby does need to keep receiving their due, but I'm concerned they're also playing a sort of "martyr" role. By doing so taking attention away from other consulting firms that may be doing the same things.
It's not an empty threat. It is extortion.
"Pay us money or our people in the industry will make you regret it" notably with lies and hit pieces in the media.
It's no different than protection rackets trashing places that don't pay protection money.
There's also been reviews for Black Myth: Wukong that have used some at-best questionable reasons to score the game in the 70s or 80s and brought the Metacritic score down to an 82 as of the time I'm writing this comment, most notably Screen Rant's, which was written by an outside consultant (makes you think) which cited a so-called, "Lack of diversity," as a negative point.
It's empty because you have to be able to make good on it to make it substantial. They not only failed to get money from the company but their smear campaign failed utterly making Wukong one of the best selling games of all time. So you are incorrect, it was only attempted extorsion because they could do nothing to them.
@@ZeroBeat1 Sure, and doing so, did no good. They can talk all they want, but once they write down and publish it, they are tied to that opinion forever, and Metacritic hasn't been a true source of what's good for a very long time because there are 1000s of movies and video games on there that get great audience scores and sell very well despite subpar critic scores.
@@ImpendingJoker But what if all this wasn't known? What if this happened in 2023? Would those articles talking about it still just be ignored by everyone?
When you 'have to' hire anyone, ESPECIALLY consultants, you need to question why!
Game Company Hiring Consultant = Whoever Hires a Consultant Doesn't Know what They Themselves should be doing in the games industry, And should not be there, Go be C-Suite Personnel for a Hot Dog Cart
As a current working IT consultant, if you ever require our services and more than 50% of your requirement does not involve any technical prowess, you are an idiot.
there are plenty of reasons to hire a consultant company, even if you wanted dei bs inserted into something for some reason. I think 7 million is a bit much just to add gay and black people though
There will be a ton of devs come out in the next months with exactly this excuse ..."We didn´t know what SBI would do (later on)" . SBI had their mission statement on their flag (and homepage) since 2018, basically unchanged. Kim Belair´s (CEO) had the first "terrify you marketing department with what happens if you do not hire us" speech in 2019 at the Womenize Keynote and later in 2021 at the GDC.
Everyone knew this, if they haven´t done their research they EARNED their failure.
SBI paraded their agenda. If any company would do the shocked pikachu face after the damage has been done, deserved.
it's strange that games they worked on failed, and yet studios kept hiring them. you'd have thought they'd have connected the dots, but apparently not. some studios had a game fail immediately because of sbi and then hired them for the next one... which failed
@@Elden_Lean the hr and publicity departments convinces the higher ups that this would "look bad" if they don't hire these consultants to look good (aka gae and lame)
How ironic @@denkerbosu3551
It's basically like with cinema.
It used to work like this:
-movie doesn't do good
-producers learn from it
-try to make the next movies different
Now it's like this:
-movie doesn't do good
-producers insult the audience, trying to shame them into liking their product
-next movie is a carbon copy of all the mistakes done with the first one
"The client is always right" is a phrase that should die and rot in an unmarked grave.
"The client is always right ABOUT WHAT THEY LIKE" should be treated as gospel, especially in the entertainment industry.
All they produce is UNNECESSARY, if the audience doesn't like it they can easily survive without it so DO BETTER.
Yeah, and even when you politely tell the client that ehat they like isn't there for sale, they should wake up and see "wait, almost nobody wants what we're selling... Everyone keeps avoiding us" but introspection is in the negative for these.
The full quote was never that the client is always right. The full quote is: The customer is always right, in matters of taste. Either way, the sentiment makes sense.
How is threatening to have the entire mainstream gaming "news" industry wright hit pieces about a game to try and destroy it unless the devs hire your company for millions of dollars NOT extortion? What else would you call it? a protection racket? blackmail?
Protection Racket is a synonym for extortion. She might just call it "I don't know what words mean"
I'd go Blackmail over extortion personally.
if a roofer looks at your roof and says "you need to have this repaired, or your roof will collapse"
is that extortion/blackmail?
they will defend their consultation as "professionals in avoiding cancelation". they offered their professional opinion: hire them & they'll guide the devs past the hidden landmines of liberal correctness.
i think they can weasel out by claiming the bad result is something that will happen on its own. they're just a small group of consultants, they don't have the sway to cancel anyone.
@PyrokineticFire1 if the roofer has a ladder and sledge hammer with the implication that they will destroy the roof or have their associates do it, then yes. That's extortion
No extortionist is going to come out with a legal document or statement and directly make a threat that can be used against them as evidence
Not really a baseless threat when they’ve got gaming news publications trying to say the company that rejected SBI is problematic. Based off a couple anonymous social media posts from someone who supposedly worked there.
Just because it isn’t working doesn’t mean the threats not real.
Then there is Black Myth Wukong getting big hype despite being flamed on every game journo site. Also Hogwarts Legacy and Stellar Blade, with Suicide Squad and Capes on the other side.
There's nothing to worry about as long as you make a game for your actual customers, not to meet woke quotas.
@@anhnguyenhoang210 thi g is these people are also inside these game companies, pushing this to the higher ups. Most companies are infected, hence most companies have woke trash in it.
The game could still be a huge success even if it didn't sell a single unit outside of China. The threat was hollow
No, that is EXACTLY what it means. SBI is just like Russia. Big talk with nothing to back it up. So they are a toothless wolf and I am tired of your bots trying to make SBI more substantial than they are.
I don’t think it was an empty threat. Look at how many articles tried to paint them as problematic to some level.
They just underestimated how much gamers don’t care about the gaming media’s opinions.
yeah because the people who write gaming media suck at games. If it was written by actual gamers it would be a different story but the people writing those articles have never touched a controller outside of work
People are hired to write articles. They hoped to write political ones but got game ones instead. They need to at least have a basic understanding of how its played but they can be very casual about gaming because their job requires being a better writer than a gamer.
@@williamcothrum9199 yeah and that's why gamers will never take those articles serious
@@williamcothrum9199 Listening to a game journalist's opinion on a game is like getting advise on the best place to eat from someone who's lived off IV nutrition their entire lives.
@@rathalos28able if they're irrelevant, why are we always so adamant in calling them out?
Because anyone with a brain Can tell you that propaganda's a powerful tool. They lie, always, and it always costs us.
It’s funny to watch videos from 10-12 years ago talking about how the games industry was becoming like Hollywood and seeing how right they were, but at the same time how they couldn’t imagine how far it would go in a decade as both Hollywood and western devs begin to see the fallout of their business decisions..
Im just waiting for the crumbling to stop so we can see the rebuilding
@@thehatter9400 Well as AAA crumbles, indie devs rise. I do think there's still good stuff to play still releasing, but it's not from the big dogs (at least in the West). I myself still have to catch up on games like Animal Well, "Crab-Souls" and Penny's Big Breakaway.
@@thehatter9400: No one really knows how long that will take. Companies like SBI are hell bent on burning everything to the ground.
@@TheRetroRenegade plenty of it is still woke trash that gets a pass because it's indie.
@@TheRetroRenegadealmost 90% of indie is woke trash without even DEI funding. Because the Devs are woke weirdoes
Let's put it this way about Spiderman 2: Everything good about it is copy-pasted from the previous game. The director even gloated about the fact he went out of his way to put in MORE of the shit people didn't like in the first one, like the Mary Jane stealth missions, and long-ass unskippable walking simulator sections. And that's not even getting to the SBI shit.
The story was trash too
@@leargamma4912 this. The only good parts were with Venom, and only because Venom as a concept is cool, not because the story for It was any good either.
The spanish version is massacered
Activists seek to either convert or k.ill. They are happy customers aren't buying because their intent was never to make money, it was to destroy the companies they infiltrated.
By definition it is extortion cuz they're demanding money under threats, regardless if the threat is real.
We don't want to fund hate anymore. We want to fund good games for being good games.
Entertainment and Politics should be separated.
Spider-Man 2 was crap the mj segments were forced and dumb
And they made Peter into a whiny baby he’s always crying and apologizing when he shouldn’t be
And they did the worst bully maguire imitation
Oh yeah and they made mj ugly when she’s supposed to be the “girl next door”
"4-5 strong indie dev"
12 consultants... BRUH
are they collecting multiple personalities as well as genders now, or what?
@@Khunark: The genders are basically their personalities.
I disagree, Extortion is the perfect word.
It was basically "It'd be a shame if everyone thinks your product is every type of "ist" and you are every "phobe", but if you pay us, we'll say and you get to say it was marked diverse by us"
Implication being they'd damage it's reputation pre-launch.
Consider Sweet Babys founder literally advocating to threaten devs and publishers in this manner- she's documented on video say it.
It's also worth mentioning that the games media then, "coincidentally" then accussed the game and the devs of various things, including toxic work environment and sexism.
We know games journalism is figuratively (and sometimes literally) in bed with these kinds of activists.
It's not hard then to consider Sweet Baby as a type of mafia-esque racket, that wields games journalism as it's "enforcing arm"
Pander to non-existent customers
call actual potential customers bigots
nobody buys the game
surprise pikachu face
Personally I would rather watch tv static than play a SBI infected game.
I would rather listen to the Wii crash noise for 10 hours than play Suicide Squad.
I would much rather play with a live hand grenade.
I'd rather watch paint dry. And get rocketed with the fumes.
I’d rather compete in Squid Game then play a SBI Game.
At least the TV static won't try to gaslight you into liking something objectively bad
Part of the problem with alan wake 2 was that it came out exclusively on the epic game store, which is always a death sentence
It definitely did have a sweetb feel from the one stream I saw. Playing as a forspoken type female character for more than half the game than actually as alan wake for one thing was a turn off
Not always. It's death sentence only if a game is there exclusively forever, not if it branches out to other platforms later, mainly Steam.
They race swapped a character from the first game and countless other dumb shit like that, the game is not good and infested with "the message"
@FactoryDan yeah but the game was good and critically acclaimed. God of war too. It's just that no one is buying it
@@shib5267 critically acclaimed by who? The jornos that we know have been caught being paid to say they like games even when they're not so great, right? I watched 2 different streamers play it, and they both had a lot to say about how it was just a mid game. I tend to trust streamers playing the games more so now than reviewers
legobutts is one of the people who worked with (and possibly screwed) Zoe Quinn the summer that GG blew up. The two of them ddos'd Kerns' charity event and then ran their own. And I'm pretty sure they are female.
Too many people fell for the GG lies
@@maniacmatt7340 What lies? Only lies I saw came from ZQ
If you can sell 1 million and not recoup half fo the cost, there is an issue.
That is every modern game, not counting 8 bit indie games.
@@RyuSaarvaeverything from bloated studios doing game ideas in corporate meeting rooms.
@@RyuSaarva might be every triple A game, I do not think most double a or indies need more than 1 milion to get a pretty good tidy sum.
And then you add the microtransaction and more so.
It is pretty absurd, a million sales is not a small normal.
If you are talking about Alan Wake, thats mostly Epic's Fault.
Epic takes a cut of the money, so they couldnt recover all yet. Just wait for Steam release and the game will sell more
@@Pherim_ except, Epic funded it, so them not seeing earnings from this is hilarious.
The studio got paid, but their lack of success is not encouraging more funding.
It’s a Canadian company, which means my tax dollars will definitely be subsidizing them for their insane…I mean “good work” 🙄
Remember when games were about having fun and enjoying the adventure? Being an escape from reality for a while? Pepperidge Farm remembers.....
19:30 "They hired them because they have to." But why? Isn't that "Hire us or we cancel you" an empty threat?
Oh, it isn't empty. SBI and all the DEI wonks want us to think that, though.
@@charlesws7825 If SBI or any DEI group did go and maliciously destroyed/"cancel" the devs for mearly not working with them, said devs would be in their right to sue SBI and every DEI group who helped destroy their company, for defamation and/or slander.(depending on how the DEI groups went about it.
SBI: "Hey, listen! See this game?! The developers of this game didn't hire us! That means isn't DEI compliant! Don't buy it!"
People who never would have bought the game even before being told not to buy it: "We didn't want it in the first place, but now we're not gonna buy it even harder! Look! Watch how we aren't buying the game we already weren't going to buy! Take that!"
ESG Investments thats why. In order to get those investments the score has to be high enough, DEI is part of the scoring and can be used to get a score good enough for cheap big investments. Consulting companies like SBI are a way to get good scores in terms of DEI
To game developers making money, with the least amount of effort possible, is the goal.
"Extortion is the practice of obtaining benefit (e.g., money or goods) through coercion. Extortion is sometimes called the "protection racket" because the racketeers often phrase their demands as payment for "protection" from (real or hypothetical) threats from unspecified other parties."
Extortion is the correct word.
I got to know of the all "Sweet Baby Inc" mafia a few months ago but that has already stopped by hand from purchasing games i was willing to buy..
If your title support SBI or any similar DEI company you won't get my money.
arrrr
Game devs can denounce sweet baby all they want, but the proof is in the pudding. If the game is woke, then it doesnt really matter if you say you dont like sweet baby, because your actions are saying you believe in the ideology of sweet baby.
devs dont really choose what games to make, they only choose how to implement features
descisions regarding what the game should be and for who is always made closer to or at the top of the company (unless its a very small company, such as indie studios)
@@EnderCrypt nah, have you seen these pictures with Ubisoft's staff? It's all wokies or simps that are doormats for them.
@@EnderCrypt it doesnt matter. We have to go with scorched earth. You interact with DEI agents? fuck you and your entire company. You have to be firm with idiots
Guys remember always make things for your target audience. Never try to pander to a group that already hate your guts.
Do not give pearls to pigs.
The way you wrote this. This could be looked at in two ways. This could be seen as instructions, from BlackRock to Sweet Baby Stinc.
And SBI is like, "Understood. We will continue to do so.
Or as sarcasm.
And the gamers that warnned people about SBI got called racists and facists
Both GoW VA are black. the old and new ones. Both do a great job. While I hate the new ones He does a good VA job.
Credit where credit is due.
why you gotta hate on my boy Teal'c?
They are only saying that because their pockets are hurting now.
"The customer is always right" in matters of taste. That last bit always gets left out. We decide what we like, even if it's ass to someone else. And guess what? In matters of taste, we don't want to touch this dog water game.
And remember, Sweet Baby Inc. isn't the only one out there. There are more. Stay vigilant.
I'm a black guy and I dropped Alan wake in the beginning when the main character made that smug generic rebellious whamen remark at the beginning about her superior.
It's amazing how easy it's to call out their wokery shitfest, but people will gaslight us with "oh it's perfectly normal, you're exaggerating" assuming they feel like being nice that day. "Lol you feel threatened incel?" And then wonder why those games flop.
@@denkerbosu3551 Those people live in denial of the truth, under a freaking bubble filled with lies and disgusting, extremist ideologies
Christopher Judge played kratos, that’s no “Greek” and the mans got own hell of a voice and presence no matter the project. And yeah, TC Carson the first VA for kratos, not Greek either, also put in stellar performances.
Alana was not wrong.
Kree jaffa
Kratos, the character, is Spartan aka Greek. That’s what chat was arguing when she called him white, so no she was wrong
@@Triflingtales4444 Greeks are white though. So she was right.
@@Kyrus86in North America most people don't consider Greeks to be "white". In Europe everyone does.
Most of the rhetoric in North America is that anyone with a slight tan isn't white. When people talk about diversity, they will say things like "it is nice to see some diverse people in here like Mexicans, Spanish people, Greeks, etc. instead of a bunch of white people."
Funny how they're saying sweet baby is bad Now, nah it was always bad since the beginning
1:41 thats because it is a threat lol
“Pay us for our time and we’ll do our best to review material to avoid rando controversial bs” VS “pay us millions in advance or we will blacklist your game for being evil”
Sounds like Extortion to me Charlie Brown
Remember that sweet baby would still be a close friend and go to hire if the list had not been made
And if they had not Streisanded themselves into revealing that Steam group's existence to the world
Self-righteous weirdos like them always end up outing themselves, because in their own eyes they're the "good guys" and know better than everyone else.
It's almost like telling people they're racist when they aren't doesn't work, when those people actively network with each other.
It works in news outlets and social media platforms, where the interaction is surface level. But when you're dealing with many close-knit groups of people that willingly interact on a frequent basis, and can have meaningful conversations, then the extortion falls flat.
Hell, vtubers demonstrate how close gamer friends are every time they collab. They play together for a few hours, and they will willingly defend each other from heinous outside forces.
... like sweet baby inc.
Wait Deadelic? The Publisher behind Gollum!? Wow, they love stepping on multiple landmines lmao
Not just publisher for that one. Devs and yea the owner of that company for some reason approved of Gollum a 3d game that the devs had like 0 experience in and also bought that expensive license…which has now caused them to apparently close their dev division.
Anyone who says "the customer is always right" has never worked in retail or service industrie.
"The customer is always right in matters of taste" is the actual quote. Means they know what they like personally. Not that they know anything.
GOW Ragnarok i think saying that was a good game is a lie actually, the gameplay is the same as 2018s with a "story" being a complete shit
Yes It has good visuals, voice acting a music, but these in my opnion are not enough to call a good game
Yeh the combat is button mashing through hordes, unnecessary right elements, collec a thon side stuff and cheap dark souls esque boss fights loll also, why tg can't I increase FOV
All the brooding over Kratos in the Greek Saga just made me want young Kratos back
Imo it suffers from the Borderlands 3 issue. Good enough gameplay, shitty story, with Spider-Man 2 being far worse by comparison. It does everything a sequel SHOULD do. . . Except the story writing is a step backwards
they change the button for the axe..
Gameplay was identical to the 2018 game yes, but that's not a bad thing because if the combat were changed or button inputs were done differently, people would complain. Muscle memory is a thing, so people who spent countless hours learning how to play a certain way and the various nuances of how to parry or dodge, etc. it would be detrimental to the game's popularity if they went a different direction in that sense.
But on the story front, yeah Ragnarok had a lot of elements that just didn't jive with the Norse mythological stories at all, and the pacing of it was worse compared to the first installment thanks to the DEI token character Angrboda. Yes let's take a random character from the stories and make her black for no reason at all other than to check a box to satisfy the woke mob and make the DEI investors (Blackrock and Vanguard) happy, and then have her featured in a USELESS section of the game where you play as Atreus who has to do all of these stupid meaningless tasks like feeding her yak and other nonsense that have NOTHING to do with advancing the story of the game and just wastes your time.
That portion I could easily do without, but the rest of the game is pretty solid.
16:24 Alana, you’re behind the curve on this one-everyone agrees with the sentiment you have, but the problem is that a lot of industry people and activists spent several years pushing for VA casting to be tied to the race (or perceived race) of the characters. So now, it’s an industry standard that Voice Actors need to match the race and ethnicity of the characters they’re voicing. Look up Rev’s videos involving ProZD to get a better idea of what’s going on.
Yep it essentially falls under the whole "cultural appropriation" BS they're so obsessed with. This VA thing all began when it was discovered that the VA for Apu on the Simpsons wasn't of Indian (South Asian not Native American for clarification) descent and was in fact a white guy, so they had to get a different VA to voice the character.
the only thing I remember from Alan Wake 2 was that she had to make a point of saying she is Swedish African American and the blouse that her white Swedish mom made for her. they thought this was so important to the narrative and they even pointed it out in the making of. What about the game itself? irrelevant to the sweater.
I thought it was the fact that she was white in the first game and then race swapped to black in the second for no reason.
@@jollyroger195 Plus the fact that they cucked Alan Wake himself to make her a boring "strong female character", which is a huge DEI trope.
The only thing I know about Alan Wake 2 is from Kirsche. She did stream playing it right after it came out because she was excited about it, but she ended up HATING it, and dropped it pretty early. I remember she was legitimately pissed when it won an award at The Game Awards. I've never played it though, so I don't know how it actually is.
I will also say, as a fan of the old God of War games, I personally think the new God of War games are kinda shit. The gameplay simply does not compare to the old games, and, in my opinion, Kratos' the way Kratos has changed as a character from the old games to the new ones just doesn't make sense.
their walking simulators with some combat the new gow games
Alan Wake II not selling well is more of an "Epic" problem than a Sweet Baby Inc problem, I think. Epic exclusivity + the "Epic-Marketing Black Hole" have ruined the sales of many games.
You would be right, if it was a PC exclusive. But it's not. It's a multiplat.
God Of War, Ragnarok race-swapped literal Norse GODS lmao, they made Angreboda black, which is hilarious.
eh, I disagree. Alan Wake have definitely been touched by SBI or DEI nonsense. It became too hollywoody if that make sense, which is why a lot of people were put off by it. It sucks and also in the game awards it was given too much attention which felt fake.
anything that receives attention or praise that you dont like=fake, gotcha
@@itdas7157ok leftist
@@itdas7157okay, why did TLOU2 win the game awards? Easy enough to answer: they're rigged. Devs paid to have them win the awards. If they took the audience into account, TLOU2 wouldn't have been anywhere on the board.
KIRSCHE played Alan Woke 2. She hated it
"Go to your marketing team and terrify them to give you what you want (SBI).
16:50 yeah "forced accent" are a big DEI tell.
A character don't need to just be a certain race, it also need to "sound a certain race" (according to far left biggots).
A good example of that is the upcoming Space Marine 2 game.
They not only had to shove a black character in the trio of playable character, but need to make sure everyone knows he is black even with a helmet on by givinh him the crigiesy and most carricatural ugandan accent.
Normally I don't mind seeing a black man in a military set up, but that's interesting here: Isn't there a Legion made entirely of huge black men that are the friendliest faction under the Empire of Mankind?
@@denkerbosu3551 The salamanders are obsidian black, mostly with Caucasian features, not "afro black" despite what a lot of people are trying to pretend they are.
That is debatable af because space marines can be recruited from nearly anywhere in the galaxy (even from criminal gangs)
Its literally a non issue that you're being a snowflake about, just like a woketard.
Already preordered SM2 since it looks like a massive step up from the first in every single respect.
TL;DR: Cope.
There's nothing noteworthy at all about a black Ultramarine. They have 500 planets to pull recruits from.
@@Mare_Man I love that cope the new "fans" that showed up since 8th love to spew.
Yeah, sure buddy. Suddenly having the ultramarines be the most diverse cast EVER is totally "not forced", and having the token black guy sound like a Wakandan is also totally not forced, because don't you know, sounding like a caricature of a Ugandan is apparently genetic for black people.
SBI doesn't attach more recent titles to their profile because they explicitly don't want you to know what they are currently working on. It really speaks for itself.
9:25 Alana need to talk to Kirsche about Alan Wake 2, she would learn a lot about how awful and cartoonishly woke the game is.
I think they forget gaming is a hobby. An expensive one and that we don't have to buy new games with the backlogs everyone already has.
15:16 If I remember right, it’s Christoper Judge. He’s one of my favorite actors because of his role as Teal’c in Stargate.
Indeed
I still don’t know how a very niche story/puzzle/Horror ? game got so many awards at the Game Awards…
Also I think the most notable SBI thing about the new GOW games are a lot of the random black “Good” characters in Norse mythology, while all the “Bad” characters and their minions are exclusively white people.
Nah, thats God Of Soy.
Last REAL god of war we had was ascension, and that conpletely shits on 2018/wokenarok.
@@BasedWukongI’m sorry you’re so brain dead you found the worst god of war good. Almost everyone unanimously says it sucks. And are you an edgy teen who hates personal growth because Kratos is still Kratos but he is more mature and has learned to calm down but will still kill a mother fucker.
I only remember angrabodia being black? And one of the main villains in her chapter was her grandmother who was black, so no not all black people were good. And yes if you remember from literally every other game in the series all the gods suck.
it was not an empty threat. they wrote several articles about how sexist the devs were. They threatened Wukon game and delivered on their threat.
Sweet baby Mafia be running rampant frfr
idc if some companies' games had "minimal" interaction with SBI, the backlash is still warranted. You can't act blindsided when a company you consulted with starts developing some VERY VOCAL backlash from the very demographic you're trying to sell to. You can choose to either sever ties with said company and condemn their actions, restore some faith from your customers, or you can just hide your ties with them but keep working with them until your customers find out and kick you to the curb. You can't make a business by not giving your customers what they want, let alone ridicule them for not wanting what you're selling.
I honestly find it hard to find "good" games to buy. It's like nothing good comes out these days. I played Elden ring and Baldurs gate 3, which I really enjoyed. Other than that I didn't buy anything. I tend to hold off until reviews come out, and almost everytime I end up not buying because of them. Wether it's intrusive microtransactions or premature release... There's always something. Battlefield 2042 is the first one that comes to mind. I literally needed a game priced gift idea for christmas. I didn't end up asking for it as a gift, and asked a spare controller instead. My controller wasn't even broken yet.
There are still good games. But waiting for reviews and researching before purchase is simply just being an informed customer and what a lot of people should really start doing as well.
There's always the huge library of old games you weren't around for or might have missed - plenty of hidden gems waiting for you to dig them up.
All good games were made pre 2010
All games I play these days are all older games. I can't afford to spend 90 bucks canadian for new releases. Just tend to get them on steam sales.
@@talkingtakotaco8611 Absolutely. I think cod went downhill because people started buying the games every year, regardless of wether they were good or not. I really liked Black ops 1. I've done everything there is on that game. I'm not against DLC either. For a game like that I bought it, but I haven't bought a cod in many years now.
15:12 Problem is that if it was the other way round Sweet Baby Inc (and those like them) would try to damage the reputation and financial success of those responsible.
They don't "suddenly" think it is bad. They are just finally able to say so without getting fired/canceled.
Watching paint dry is more fun than any game that SBI has worked on
Tf2 demoman is a black character voiced by white man, but it is one of the best voices i've ever heard
God of war being good has nothing to do with sweet baby involvement, while squad being bad was more directly impacted by sweet baby
This kinda reminds me of things various politicians said about those who didn't vote how they wanted.
Both people who did the VA for Kratos were black, and both did an amazing job
15:32 yeah I think anyone who has a good voice for the character should get the role but for a while some VA's were saying people should match the roles (they were actually mad that white people were voicing non white characters), which was spinning off from actors upset white poeple were taking 'non white rolls' like Scarlett Johansson in Ghost in the Shell
God of War 1, 2, 3 Kratos was voiced by a black guy. God of War 2016 and Ragnaroc is a greek man. Both are stellar
Darth Vaders voice actor is black. Probably one of the most iconic fictional voices ever
Remember to blacklist the individuals involved, otherwise they'll just make another consultant company when this one folds so they can keep ruining the industry.
No, extortion is the perfect word. They followed through on the monkey game.
I think a good example is resident evil 2 and 4 for Ada's voice actor, the voice for 2 in my opinion matched her better than 4.
Christopher Judge is an amazing actor and VA. I love his voice and he is truly complete opposite IRL person than Kratos. He is a hilarious jokester who is always smiling and its extremely good natured. I missed the chance to see him at a con and I wish I took the time to go there, even if I paid just go to get his signature and tell him how awesome he is. Christopher takes his roles seriously but off script, he's a great guy who just wants to have fun.
thats a badass surname
If I remember correctly during the Valhalla dlc when kratos talks to his old self apparently they were gonna have judge voice the old kratos but he when against that so they left the old kratos silent during that scene.
that "HOLY SMOKES!!!" was absolutely incredible...
the "goog" games are only selling throug thier brand names. i played spinderman cause the fierst game was fun and the gameplay of the second was fun too BUT the Inclusivity in spiderman 2 is quite well done imho ... ragnarok i missed so far and might be ending up not playing it at all cause ... a black person in north mythology ? imho only due to SBI .... games should be about fun and no political agenda and realworld stoff when a game dont take place an enviremnt nearly the same as we are living in, like spiderman does
Honestly, with Capes, finding out about Sweet Baby wasn't the final nail in the coffin, the game was already buried in the coffin, they just dug it up and put another nail in it for good measure before reburying it.
Drove a stake through the center of it, just to make sure it doesn't come back to life as a vampire or something.
13:51 The full line is "Customer is always right in matters of taste", does not mean you need to bend over backwards to every karenxir who demands you change your whole business to cater to their political worldview
Companies need to just focus on hiring the best people they can instead of just filling out a checklist for diversity. Saying that, if they go that route diversity will eventually come in naturally. I work at a place where it's pretty diverse, but does not sacrifice in quality to get there.
1:40 The word you're looking for is *Racket*, good ol' gangster tactics.
There's that gaming journalist lady as well from that rather iconic/infamous rant, who is just super antagonistic to anyone who even questions why they are being questioned about "woke agendas". Why does everyone need to defend themselves by being so aggressive and accusatory to the other party. The Internet has killed off the moral high ground.
1:51 its only a semi-empty threat just a couple weeks after they turned SBI down nearly every major "game journalism" site wrote an article about how sexist the company was based on a comment that they knew was mistranslated and never mentioned gender or sexuality/ sexual preference. It is a threat because in the past (before the "wizard game"), these kinds of articles could end a game before day one, and the people engaging in this behavior keep thinking 'this time it will work'.
In a game called Alan Wake I would like to play as Alan Wake.
The Alan Wake situation in particular is upsetting. Remedy had a very thoughtful way of making their games, where even what you'd normally consider "filler" or "background" was done with intention. Sticky notes and signs and graffiti that you'd just walk past without thinking, were done with purpose and enforced the lore and story, even across games, and not just thrown together.
Which is why when something in a preview found in another game ended up changing (and in a DEI direction), fans felt this was intentional as well... to appease the consulting firm's push for a modern audience. :\
Every retort I've seen always say "it wasn't a canon event", "it was only up for less than a minute", "it was just a preview", etc, would be fine for other game companies. But this company was supposed to be different in how they did things.
I think the biggest reason why Alan Wake 2 is so unpopular is being Epic exclusive.
Games not on steam might as well not exist on PC at all.
15:20-ish, that was case back in the day of like, ps2/xbox/ps3/360. Hire people best suited for the role, and that doesn't exist anymore. All this politically correct crap is harming the games industry, it's already killed Hollywood. I think that's why a lot of people have nostalgia for older games, especially those who are caught in the middle of the culture war.
We can see whether games are financial successes or not . Steam play numbers are public and copies sold on other platforms are usually publicly estimated. Studio finances after they’ve only released one or two games are pretty good metric too to see how their products are selling.
sure they didnt know what they would say but the thing is that they have said similar stuff for years not only recently
I will not stand for this Alan Wake slander
yeah, what kind of reviews were alana seeing for that game? it was literally one of the highest rated games of last year lol
Empty threat or not, using threats to further your monetary and ideological interests is definitely a crime or is toeing the line at best.
15:12 I’m black, and I approve this message.
Ragnarok being a good game is a subject of opinion
The sidequests were meh however the main story going through Norse mythology was top tier
i liked the 1st one more and I enjoyed the originals much more.
Finally
Hold the lines boys!
How to find the American: "Um, akchyually I'm not white, I'm Greek"
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
and christopher judge isnt greek anyways.. i dont know where chat got that from.. hes from Chulak like his father the previous first prime of Apophis...sorry i couldnt help myself..but not greek
Beyond the woke stuff in Alan Wake II, the gameplay wasn't amazing either...
Imo Alan wake in general was just a walking Sim with a luke warm horror plot. I never knew it had such a cult following
@@Spectrum0122like bricky said about the first one, best 6/10 game. He said it because objectively the game isn't good but he had fun with it.
@@IronPavlo Bricky at least is honest when he's being biased.
Alan Wake II is also an Epic exclusive.
Epic didn't advertise, and it's also not available pyhsically.
the controversy with GOW Ragnarok was mainly about two things (iirc):
1) the character Angrboda, the future wife of Loki, was made into a black girl instead of a norse (aka white) girl. another case of "re-interpreting" myth but through the "modern/DEI" lens. to put into perspective they introduced/kept Freyja, queen of the Valkyries, as norse-white in both games, so why did they choose not do the same for Angrboda? well, as stated, "DEI" lens.
2) they made Thor into an unflattering obese man similar to how they did Chris Hemsworth in Thor: Love and Thunder. this was not well received due to people expecting Thor to be as intimidating and strong as Kratos was (despite the previous game showing Kratos getting bodied by Baldur, a dude 2/3rds his size and arguably half as muscular, but tbf Baldur had the whole "I can't feel pain" shit going for him; that being said, in the final release they did make him strong enough to beat and revive Kratos in their first battle)