How A Small Video Game Narrative Studio Wound Up At The Heart Of A Massive, Anti-Woke Conspiracy Theory - Aftermath (aftermath.site)
from Stopthatgirl7@lemmy.world to games@lemmy.world on 08 Mar 2024 04:58
https://lemmy.world/post/12868268

Sweet Baby Inc doesn’t even remotely do what many think it does, but on the modern internet, that doesn’t matter

#games

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Carrolade@lemmy.world on 08 Mar 2024 06:01 next collapse

Small, weak people need an excuse for why they feel so small. One that deflects the blame from where it truly belongs–on them, for lacking the strength and courage to be better than they are. For lacking the spine to take a more difficult, more noble road.

So just believe it’s not your fault, it’s some mighty shadowy conspiracy thing of great darkness. Not just you being a coward and weakling. Much more preferable.

beaxingu@kbin.run on 09 Mar 2024 09:49 collapse

thank you

Alimentar@lemm.ee on 08 Mar 2024 06:13 next collapse

Who actually cares? A niche group of people want to curate their games based on a personal preference. Nobody has the moral authority to tell them what they should or shouldn’t spend their money on.

brsrklf@jlai.lu on 08 Mar 2024 07:45 next collapse

Except they’re not just saying “we don’t like this” and moving on. They’re using dogwhistles (“woke” is only the first one) and 4-chan level type of slurs in their cries of conspiracy. It’s a thinly disguised hate club, games are only an excuse.

They tried to progressively hide it from their group’s front page, editing its language several times, but it was still there in the discussions in and around the group.

beaxingu@kbin.run on 09 Mar 2024 09:43 collapse

why are you just totally ignoring how this whole thing started in the first place with a sweet baby employ trying to take the group down and the account of the creator. yes editing it for people exactly like you that cant handle words on the internet and that needs to call everything hate so that you can get your way but that's not going to work anymore now like how it always should have been you are just very very funny.

Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world on 09 Mar 2024 16:01 collapse

Oh, bless your heart.

thesilverpig@lemmy.world on 09 Mar 2024 16:26 next collapse

I don’t really know much about the sweat baby controversy, but whenever I see “bless your heart” it just comes of as weak tea as it avoids engaging with premises or arguments and condescends and I think it generally loses the argument from a third party perspective. At least I’ve never read it and thought, wow they really got them.

It might be trite but I always preferred agree to disagree as a disengage tactic. That’s just my two cents on internet discourse though.

beaxingu@kbin.run on 09 Mar 2024 22:57 collapse

bless you in the year of our lord 2024

ampersandrew@kbin.social on 08 Mar 2024 12:43 collapse

I think I'd have a problem with it if bad internet super sleuths came up with some nonsense reasons to try to destroy my reputation.

Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip on 09 Mar 2024 12:29 collapse

That’s no excuse to try to get a user’s account banned. You might want to read up on some of their tweets. The ceo is also a sexist and a racist. The steam group had like 1000 people now it has almost 200,000 after the whole debacle. Reputation is earned not given. SomeOrdinaryGamer made a good video highlighting stupidity from both sides.

If they are proud of their work, why try to hide it.

Dremor@lemmy.world on 09 Mar 2024 12:37 next collapse

In an ideal world, yes.
But unfortunately these days people prefer to follow blindly their bias and people validating said bias instead of investing the time required to investigate by their own mean, with least biased sources.
I’d blame social medias that make everything quasi instantaneous, but it is just a component of a whole, not the only cause.

ampersandrew@kbin.social on 09 Mar 2024 17:00 collapse

That’s no excuse to try to get a user’s account banned.

I'd say it is. They highlight the part of Steam's rules against harassment, and while that's always subject to interpretation, they feel that this counts, and I'm inclined to agree.

The steam group had like 1000 people now it has almost 200,000 after the whole debacle.

Before this group blew up, YouTube channels with hundreds of thousands of subscribers were already making their bullshit conspiracy theories. People try to paint this as Streisand, but that's ridiculous. The Streisand effect is trying to hide something, which you still seem convinced they're trying to do despite highlighting their clients on their web page and getting listings in the credits of the games they work on. What it looks like to me instead is that:

  1. sensationalist YouTubers paint this company as the devil
  2. this curator is made in response
  3. it gets a natural, human reaction from the people targeted by this group
  4. the YouTubers from step 1 use that reaction to mean whatever they want it to mean

In no way did I foresee a way that this group didn't continue on the same trajectory with or without Sweet Baby responding to its existence.

SomeOrdinaryGamer made a good video highlighting stupidity from both sides.

I've seen one video from SomeOrdinaryGamers, and it was too many, but he's cited in this article as perpetuating the bullshit conspiracy theories, so I'm good.

Hovenko@iusearchlinux.fyi on 08 Mar 2024 06:37 next collapse

Some ordinary gamers had a nice video about those racists.

Lurra@lemm.ee on 11 Mar 2024 22:09 collapse

Yeh I saw the same video. Right now there are tons of youtube videos made by different gamers (this past week) that have been expressing their dislike over how SBI have been terrorizing companies to hired them. Good this is coming back to the surface again so we are aware of these business practices.

DarkMessiah@lemmy.world on 08 Mar 2024 07:18 next collapse

What was the saying? Don’t assume malice when it could be incompetence? Especially when malice requires a John Wick level of shadow organisation?

morphballganon@lemmy.world on 08 Mar 2024 07:31 collapse

I think it’s

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence

toxicbubble@lemmy.world on 08 Mar 2024 16:05 next collapse

that’s why i play indie games, but mostly cuz im poor

beaxingu@kbin.run on 08 Mar 2024 21:45 next collapse

shows how game journalism is shit and there as useless as sweet baby they deserve each other.

[deleted] on 08 Mar 2024 22:04 collapse

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[deleted] on 09 Mar 2024 01:49 collapse

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drislands@lemmy.world on 09 Mar 2024 17:17 next collapse

Awesome writeup. I had heard that some very special individuals were trying to paint this company as “pro-woke”, and therefore any game they touched should be avoided – and that’s obviously going to be nonsense, but it’s good to see the full story.

Silentiea@lemm.ee on 09 Mar 2024 21:04 next collapse

I’m not sure I understand what’s happening here, but I’m looking forward to the five hour hbomberguy video explaining the whole thing in about 8 years.

ICastFist@programming.dev on 13 Mar 2024 15:11 collapse

It’s gamergate 2.0: electric boogaloo

Silentiea@lemm.ee on 13 Mar 2024 15:16 collapse

It definitely smells like that, except maybe just anti-“woke” or anti-minorities instead of just anti-women?

Bruncvik@lemmy.world on 10 Mar 2024 00:23 collapse

When I was still buying new games, I’ve had development studios I preferred, and others I avoided. Those were simpler times (and simpler games), when one small studio did everything.

Later, additional external companies got involved, and some tried to hide their presence. I remember when The Adventure Company started using a very customer unfriendly sort of copy protection, and I started using a list of affectted games, so that I could avoid them.

These days, multiple companies are involved with game design. As a consumer, it’s only normal that I’d like to know who had their hands on developing a game I’d be interested in. I haven’t played any games Sweet Baby was involved with, but if I did and had a strong opinion (negative or positive) about their work, I’d appreciate a list of games they worked on, to make a purchase choice that would suit me best.