this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2024
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You can’t really gauge its Steam reviews because there are only 13(!) total so far, reflective of a game that has launched with just a few hundred players. 224, as I’m writing this article. Sub-Concord levels. Yes. Concord is a unit of measurement now.

The Concord legacy lives on.

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[–] PunchingWood@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago (2 children)

From what I know Sweet Baby Inc. is involved. Which is a studio that focuses a lot on DEI when it comes to narratives/story in games.

They already did not have the greatest track record, some good games, but a lot of mediocre and even bad games. It doesn't necessarily mean that the game scores are related to DEI, but the fact it keeps happening to games they're involved with says at least something.

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 22 points 1 month ago (2 children)

The good games they've worked on have included some of the most praised games in recent years. If you want to ask why this keeps happening, you have to have massive blinders on to ignore the likes of God of War: Ragnarok and Alan Wake II, both firmly in recent memory, and also realize that basically no writer on earth could save something like Suicide Squad from its criticisms.

[–] Katana314@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

No…TRUE Scotsman uses Sweet Baby Inc!

[–] PunchingWood@lemmy.world -5 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Like I said, some good games. Which by the way still received criticism from people about certain DEI related involvements, whether you agree or disagree with that is different thing, but the criticism was there too.

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 16 points 1 month ago

"Criticism" is a charitable word for what that is.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 15 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Anything not about straight white men will have people complaining about DEI bullshit. It's never a reason a game has failed. They fail because they're bad games. They might also include DEI stuff, but it's not the cause.

Edit: correction, those games listed are about straight white men. Anything that includes a character that is not a straight white man will have those people complaining. They're the most fragile people in the world.

[–] garretble@lemmy.world 14 points 1 month ago (1 children)

What does “focuses on DEI” even mean? That it has non-white people?

Some stories don’t have straight, white people. That doesn’t mean there’s some agenda going on.

[–] PunchingWood@lemmy.world -1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It means exactly what DEI is. So yeah, predominantly focusing on non-white people and non-straight people.

They are a studio that consults on specifically this in games they're collaborating with.

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

They are contract writers for hire, and you have been misled, either intentionally or unintentionally, by the YouTubers you follow. Both Sweet Baby and their clients have denied this interpretation of what they do.

[–] PunchingWood@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Not sure what I'm being misled over? It literally says on Wikipedia as well:

Sweet Baby Inc. is a Canadian narrative development and consultation studio based in Montreal. Founded by former Ubisoft developers, including scriptwriter Kim Belair and product manager David Bédard, the company consults on video game narratives during development to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion within game narratives and studios.

Also, in every game they've worked on it's quite obvious which part they've been involved with, based on the above.

But people on this sub really just like to keep shooting the messenger huh 🙄

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

You know that in the wake of Suicide Squad and Saga from Alan Wake II, they stated quite clearly that what was "obviously" their contributions were totally wrong, with Remedy confirming on their end? It may not be inaccurate to state that sensitivity reading or consulting for authenticity when writing diverse characters are services that they offer, but their contributions to each game are not itemized. It's like when a bad port happens and people see Iron Galaxy in the credits, they want to see this pattern of Iron Galaxy being responsible rather than and then throw out any evidence of Iron Galaxy actually being a really good port studio. I get that you want to form patterns of why something you perceive to be wrong is happening, but the truth is that these companies' contributions are not itemized, because video games work more like a traditional business than Hollywood, and it's no one's policy to break out which work was done by a contractor versus in-house, so you'll actually never know. Instead, Endymion, or whoever it is you watch that picked up on the week's trending rage bait topic, cosplays as a journalist and infers a whole lot of what Sweet Baby does that they just didn't do, whereas an actual journalist would get quotes from sources to confirm that it's true.