Sweet Baby Inc CEO Kim Belair at Game Developers Conference 2019:
"If you’re in development and you are part of like that dominant voice, you’re like a cis hetero white dude or just adjacent to that, do not wait until the end to call your consultants. Bring them in at the beginning. And instead of asking them, ‘Hey, is this very racist thing we did very racist? Or is this deeply offensive thing, offensive? Are you hurt by it?’ Ask them what they want to see. Ask them what would thrill them, what would bring them joy. And if you have a Team Lead put that request to them very, very early.”
"If If you’re a creative working in AAA, which I did for many, many years, put this stuff up to your higher-ups. And if they don’t see the value and what you’re asking for when you ask for consultants, when you ask for research, go have a coffee with your marketing team and just terrify them with the possibility of what’s going to happen if they don’t give you what you want.”
“Because they have to consider (I say that out loud as a joke, but it’s actually very, very true) because if you start to consider the people who are player[-facing] and audience-facing and you have to deal with mitigating harm and with keeping the sentiment around their game and their project positive there’s like a genuine value that you could impress upon them both ethically and financially. You could say this is important,”
“It’s also a valid discussion to have because if you’re working with a thin narrative budget and you work in AAA, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised or dismayed by the amount of money that marketing can give you.”
Once again, deliberate hyperbole spoken in a comedic spirit is twisted into a threat:
The consumers who enjoy gaming took her words, “terrify them”, and RAN with it.
No context. no nuance.
“She wants to ‘terrify’ US?” they ignorantly assume, “Well turnabout is fair play.”
And now they feel entitled to ‘terrify’ Sweet Baby Inc ‘back’.When in fact all Sweet Baby Inc was ever trying to do is twist the arm of out of touch c-suite douchebag fatcats who still think rape jokes are funny.
Kinda based of them.
But they REALLY didn’t help themselves here. See, they ironically fell into their own trap.
Someone should’ve consulted THEM about “the possibility of what’s going to happen if they” generalize ‘cis het white dudes’.
Chiefly, calling out ‘cis het white dudes’ is, well…
it’s like spilling sugar on the floor. Do you want ants? Because that’s how you get ants.
Except instead of ants it’s stochastic harassment from people with literally nothing better to do.go have a coffee with your marketing team and just terrify them with the possibility of what’s going to happen if they don’t give you what you want.”
Wow, thats text book racketeering and the CEO is loud and proud about it. How are the feds not slapping them with Rico charges?
it would only be racketeering if, after Party A advises Party B about consequences, Party A then has CONTROL of whether those consequences occur.
Party A observing that if Party B touches the hot stove then Party B shall receive second degree burns on their hand is not criminal.
Party A whipping out a blowtorch and personally burning Party B’s hand to PUNISH Party B for touching the stove is criminal.
Sweet Baby Inc does not control social media or news organizations.
They do not have the means to drum up negative press over racist, sexist, or otherwise prejudiced content.
They are a weather reporter saying “there will be rain, and if you do not want to get wet, we advise you bring an umbrella”
at no point is it appropriate for a community to flip out and spray a weather reporter with a firehose for “threatening” to get people wet.
They are a weather reporter saying "there will be rain, and if you do not want to get wet, we advise you bring an umbrella
They are the ones selling umbrellas in this case.
Looking around, they seem to be friends of various games journalists, so by that metaphor, they also have some form of weather control, or at least know the guys who have it. Cloud seeding or whatever.
Still feels like extortion to me.
Oh hey, Ghazi is here too. Figures that the weird lefty cult gamer sub is here too.
For the record, theres plenty of curators telling you about games. Like if you can pet the dog for example.
This one happens to be about a subpar consultancy company, who worked on games like Suicide Squad.
What, you guys like licking boots?