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Sweet Baby Inc.

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Sweet Baby Inc.
Company typePrivate
IndustryVideo games
Founded2018; 6 years ago (2018) in Montreal, Canada
Founders
  • Kim Belair
  • David Bédard
Headquarters
Montreal
,
Canada
Key people
  • Kim Belair (CEO)
  • David Bédard (COO)
Number of employees
16 (2024)
Websitesweetbabyinc.com

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. Sweet Baby has consulted with several developers and games, including Sable, God of War Ragnarök, and Alan Wake 2. In 2023, the studio became the target of online users who claimed it promoted a "woke agenda".

History

Photograph of Kim Belair in 2024
Photograph of David Bédard in 2019
Sweet Baby Inc. was co-founded by CEO Kim Belair (left) and COO David Bédard (right).[1]

Sweet Baby Inc. was founded in Montreal in 2018 by former Ubisoft developers,[2][3] including scriptwriter Kim Belair and product manager David Bédard.[2][1][4] Belair became Sweet Baby's chief executive officer and Bédard the chief operating officer.[2][5] Belair said that she founded the company to promote the advancement of women and marginalized groups in the video game industry.[2]

The company consults on game narratives during development and promotes gender and racial diversity in development teams, including correct and consistent pay, training, and credits.[2][6] Sweet Baby's stated goal is to ensure characters from different demographic groups are not only added for nominal presence, but that their portrayal is respectful, fits into the overall context, and is written for quality scenarios. To achieve this, Sweet Baby organizes developer consultations with representatives of different ethnic groups and cultures when creating characters from these same cultures.[3][7][8] The company connects developers with studios when vacancies arise.[8] While the studio can be consulted at any point in development, Belair felt it had a better chance at improvement by entering early to avoid undoing completed work.[3]

From 2018, Bédard was the brand content manager and Belair the story architect on Unknown 9, a transmedia project encompassing comics, novels, and video games,[9][10][11] initially as employees of developer Reflector Entertainment and later as part of Sweet Baby.[9][10][12] The studio consulted on the narrative and characters of God of War Ragnarök,[13] focusing on making the black character Angrboda more relatable to black audiences while acknowledging the game's Norse mythology.[3][5] Sweet Baby joined the development of Goodbye Volcano High in 2020[14] and led the narrative team after development rebooted in 2021.[15]

In 2022, the studio developed Lost Your Marbles for the Playdate handheld console, and formed two teams of around twelve people to assist in the development of two other Playdate games over the course of six months: Recommendation Dog and Reel Steel.[16][17] Bédard felt undertaking two projects simultaneously was "a bit too ambitious" for the studio due to their differing production schedules.[16] The studio joined Afterlove EP as consultants after the death of writer and designer Mohammad Fahmi in 2022, having been speaking with Fahmi before his death.[18] Belair assisted Remedy Entertainment in refining the background and story arc of Saga Anderson, the protagonist of Alan Wake 2,[5][19] and worked with A44 Games in developing Nor Vanek, the protagonist of Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn.[20] The studio joined the production of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League late in its development, focusing on writing audio logs, non-player character dialogue, and in-game advertisements.[5][7] Sweet Baby was also involved in writing the script for Marvel's Spider-Man 2.[5][7] As of April 2024, Sweet Baby had 16 employees.[5][21]

Online backlash and harassment

In October 2023, Sweet Baby attracted negative attention on Kiwi Farms, a web forum where a user described the company's involvement with Alan Wake 2 as "possibly one of the biggest scandals in gaming history";[7] similar posts were shared on sites like 4chan and the Reddit community r/KotakuInAction.[5] Employees said a small degree of harassment was directed towards the company following this attention,[22] which increased in January 2024,[23] when a Steam user created a curator group listing Sweet Baby's work,[24] encouraging players to avoid the games as the studio promoted a "woke agenda".[7][23][25] The curator group, known as "Sweet Baby Inc detected", received increased attention in February when a Sweet Baby employee asked others to report the group and its creator for violating Steam's code of conduct.[26][21] The group's creator accused Sweet Baby of censorship.[21] By April, the group had more than 355,000 followers[21] and a related Discord server had thousands of members.[27] Both underwent purges of content in order to stay online after Steam and Discord staff contacted their moderators about potentially violating terms of service, as much of the user-driven content bordered on hate speech.[22][23] Belair said Sweet Baby did not contact Steam's owner, Valve, regarding the group.[21]

Theories about the studio included that it was directly or indirectly controlled by investment company BlackRock,[5] that it forced Remedy to make Alan Wake 2's Saga Anderson black (which game director Kyle Rowley denied),[7][28] and that it was responsible for recent failures in high-profile games such as Suicide Squad [a] and for recent industry layoffs.[5][7][23] Multiple journalists described these disproven ideas as conspiracy theories;[22][27][30] several were based on isolated statements made by Sweet Baby employees on social media or at conferences, taken out of the larger context related to their views on diversity in game narratives.[12] Aftermath's Nathan Grayson noted theories would likely continue spreading as long as their narrative compelled viewers and readers;[5] YouTube videos about the backlash collectively received millions of views.[31][32] Belair responded that Sweet Baby's work was to improve narratives generally rather than being solely focused on diversity and inclusion; she noted gamers thought the studio had simply added pride flags to Marvel's Spider-Man 2 when it had actually provided narrative work for about three years, including several levels and character arcs.[5][7]

Sweet Baby's employees faced harassment and attempted doxing in response to the backlash,[5][7][22] with attention drawn towards the company and its employees by high-profile social media accounts including Elon Musk, Matt Walsh, and Libs of TikTok.[12][21] Others who faced harassment included Kotaku's reporter who first highlighted the backlash[21][23] and developers who worked with or publicly supported Sweet Baby.[12] Several journalists and content creators compared it to Gamergate,[7][22][32] and TheGamer's Stacey Henley called it "the latest dogwhistle for rejecting progressive ideas".[33] The Verge's Ash Parrish felt the Discord members were not attempting to "create meaningful change for their cause" but were "simply there for the vibes, rancid though they are".[12] The studio continued to operate as normal;[5][7] Bédard felt the industry had become familiar with similar controversies since Gamergate.[5] Its partners, like Insomniac Games, offered advice on moving past the backlash based on their own experiences with harassment,[5][7] and several developers and consultants, like Rami Ismail and Steve Saylor, supported the studio on social media.[21][25] Journalists and academics urged the studio's other partners to publicly defend it to stop false accusations and avoid complicity,[27][34] and Game Developer's Bryant Francis urged Steam and Discord to clarify their policies to avoid similar incidents and further harassment.[22]

List of games

Year Game Developer Role Ref.
2019 Neo Cab Chance Agency Writing [35]
2020 Dota Underlords Valve Scriptwriting [36]
Assassin's Creed Valhalla Ubisoft Montreal Scriptwriting [24][35]
2021 Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance Tuque Games Scriptwriting [37]
Sable Shedworks Writing and characters [2][38]
2022 Lost Your Marbles Sweet Baby Inc. Full development [16][38]
Gotham Knights WB Games Montréal Scriptwriting [39]
God of War Ragnarök Santa Monica Studio Narrative and character consultation [3][38]
2023 Recommendation Dog Sweet Baby Inc. Full development [16]
Reel Steal
Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew Mimimi Games Sensitivity reading [13]
Goodbye Volcano High KO_OP Narrative direction, design, writing, sensitivity reading [15][38]
Quantum Phantom Basketball Brenda Arts Writing and production [40]
The Crew Motorfest Ubisoft Ivory Tower Proofreading, additional writing [24][38]
Kingdom Eighties Fury Studios Additional writing [41]
Marvel's Spider-Man 2 Insomniac Games Story consultation [2][38]
Alan Wake 2 Remedy Entertainment Characters, sensitivity reading [3][38]
2024 Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Rocksteady Studios Scriptwriting (audio logs, non-player characters) [2][38]
Tales of Kenzera: Zau Surgent Studios Narrative [40]
Capes Spitfire Interactive Character consultation [38]
Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn A44 Games Writing and characters [20]
2025 Afterlove EP Pikselnesia Narrative design and writing [18][42]
Hyper Light Breaker Heart Machine Story structure and character development [43][44]
Usual June Finji Narrative and characters [45][38]
South of Midnight Compulsion Games Story development, cultural and character consultation [46][38]
TBA Battle Shapers Metric Empire Narrative direction, design, writing, world [38]
Breeze in the Clouds Stormy Nights Interactive Narrative design and consultation [44]
Contraband Avalanche Studios Sensitivity reading, scriptwriting [44]
Marvel's Wolverine Insomniac Games Story consultation [2]

Notes

  1. ^ Several journalists countered that Suicide Squad's mixed critical response was due to its combat gameplay and live service mechanics—on which Sweet Baby Inc. had no input—rather than its writing.[5][29]

References

  1. ^ a b Gordon, Lewis (25 February 2020). "Beyond GTA: how tech and communities could change the future of open-world games". The Verge. Vox Media. Archived from the original on 25 February 2020. Retrieved 14 March 2024.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Ryssdal, Kai; McHenry, Sean (27 September 2021). "This video game company wants to make the industry safer for marginalized people". Marketplace. Archived from the original on 28 September 2021. Retrieved 7 March 2024.
  3. ^ a b c d e f Wen, Alan (4 December 2023). "Three considerations for improving diverse game narratives and characters". GamesIndustry.biz. Gamer Network. Archived from the original on 4 December 2023. Retrieved 7 March 2024.
  4. ^ Rabb, Alex Sándor (31 July 2015). "Assassin's Creed Unity E3 Cinematic Trailer". In Rose, Mikki; Takai, Joe (eds.). ACM SIGGRAPH 2015 Computer Animation Festival. Los Angeles: ACM SIGGRAPH. pp. 18–20. doi:10.1145/2745234. ISBN 978-1-4503-3326-9.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Grayson, Nathan (7 March 2024). "How A Small Video Game Narrative Studio Wound Up At The Heart Of A Massive, Anti-Woke Conspiracy Theory". Aftermath. Archived from the original on 7 March 2024. Retrieved 9 March 2024.
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  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Mercante, Alyssa (6 March 2024). "Sweet Baby Inc. Doesn't Do What Some Gamers Think It Does". Kotaku. G/O Media. Archived from the original on 6 March 2024. Retrieved 7 March 2024.
  8. ^ a b Hermus, Simoon (8 May 2021). "De maatschappij sijpelt de gamewereld in" [Society seeps into the gaming world]. NRC Handelsblad (in Dutch). Vol. 51, no. 185. Mediahuis. pp. E16–E17.
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  10. ^ a b "UNKNOWN 9". Shorty Awards. Archived from the original on 19 March 2024. Retrieved 29 March 2024.
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  16. ^ a b c d Kerr, Chris (6 April 2023). "Inside the development of Playdate titles Recommendation Dog!! and Reel Steal". Game Developer. Informa. Archived from the original on 5 April 2023. Retrieved 7 March 2024.
  17. ^ "Catalog shopping". Edge. No. 384. Future plc. 20 April 2023. pp. 12–13. ISSN 1350-1593.
  18. ^ a b Pikselnesia (17 September 2023). "Afterlove EP: Major Update on Progress, Platforms, and Launch Timing". Fellow Traveller Games. Archived from the original on 27 September 2023. Retrieved 9 March 2024.
  19. ^ Fillari, Alessandro (14 November 2023). "Why Remedy Entertainment went all in on Saga Anderson in Alan Wake 2". Game Developer. Informa. Archived from the original on 13 November 2023. Retrieved 7 March 2024.
  20. ^ a b Peel, Jeremy (24 March 2022). "Lock and Load". Edge. No. 370. Future plc. pp. 50–65. ISSN 1350-1593.
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  22. ^ a b c d e f Francis, Bryant (11 March 2024). "Why are Valve and Discord permitting harassment against Sweet Baby Inc.?". Game Developer. Informa. Archived from the original on 11 March 2024. Retrieved 12 March 2024.
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  25. ^ a b Ngan, Liv (7 March 2024). "Spider-Man, Alan Wake, Ridiculous Fishing devs speak up in support of consultancy studio Sweet Baby Inc". Eurogamer. Gamer Network. Archived from the original on 7 March 2024. Retrieved 8 March 2024.
  26. ^ Beckwith, Michael (6 March 2024). "Sweet Baby Inc Detected drama, explained". Dot Esports. Gamurs. Archived from the original on 7 March 2024. Retrieved 7 March 2024.
  27. ^ a b c MacDonald, Keza (8 March 2024). "It's 10 years since Gamergate – the industry must now stand up to far-right trolls". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 8 March 2024. Retrieved 9 March 2024.
  28. ^ Switzer, Eric (5 March 2024). "Going After Alan Wake 2 For Being "Woke" Really Gives The Game Away". TheGamer. Valnet. Archived from the original on 5 March 2024. Retrieved 7 March 2024.
  29. ^ Hopley, Alex (8 March 2024). "What is Sweet Baby Inc. and why are people so mad about it?". Gamereactor. Gamez Publishing A/S. Archived from the original on 9 March 2024. Retrieved 9 March 2024.
  30. ^ Ulatowski, Rachel (7 March 2024). "Sweet Baby Inc. Is Under Attack Due to Conservative Conspiracy Theories". The Mary Sue. Gamurs. Archived from the original on 7 March 2024. Retrieved 8 March 2024.
  31. ^ Kaplan, Alex (3 March 2024). "Online trolls are targeting a company involved in video game development, calling their efforts 'Gamergate 2.0'". Media Matters for America. Archived from the original on 8 March 2024. Retrieved 13 March 2024.
  32. ^ a b Carless, Will (22 March 2024). "Parler is back online; Gamergate 2.0 hits gaming company Sweet Baby". USA Today. Gannett. Archived from the original on 22 March 2024. Retrieved 23 March 2024.
  33. ^ Henley, Stacey (7 March 2024). "Diversity Is Not Your Enemy In A Life-Service World". TheGamer. Valnet. Archived from the original on 7 March 2024. Retrieved 8 March 2024.
  34. ^ Francis, Bryant (28 March 2024). "Silence from Sony, Remedy, other studios could worsen harassment campaign". Game Developer. Informa. Archived from the original on 28 March 2024. Retrieved 29 March 2024.
  35. ^ a b Moyse, Chris (20 August 2021). "Goodbye Volcano High has been placed in detention until 2022". Destructoid. Enthusiast Gaming. Archived from the original on 19 August 2021. Retrieved 7 March 2024.
  36. ^ Spira, David; Belair, Kim; MacGillivray, Ari; Bédard, David (23 August 2020). VIDEO GAME ROOTS: The talk you want to attend even if you're not a gamer. The Reality Escape Convention. Archived from the original on 7 March 2024. Retrieved 7 March 2024.
  37. ^ Tuque Games (22 June 2021). Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance (PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S). Wizards of the Coast. Scene: Credits.
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  39. ^ Orzeszek, Szymon (6 March 2024). "Co to jest Sweet Baby Inc i dlaczego gracze krytykują twórców współpracujących z tą firmą" [What is Sweet Baby Inc and why do players criticize creators working with this company]. Gry-Online (in Polish). Archived from the original on 6 March 2024. Retrieved 7 March 2024.
  40. ^ a b Bédard, David (11 January 2024). "January, brought to you by Baby Power". Sweet Baby Inc. Archived from the original on 13 January 2024. Retrieved 7 March 2024.
  41. ^ Fury Studios (26 June 2023). Kingdom Eighties (Windows). Raw Fury. Scene: Credits.
  42. ^ Pi, Lena (2 March 2024). "Ритмическое приключение Afterlove EP авторов Coffee Talk выйдет осенью 2024 года" [The rhythmic adventure Afterlove EP by Coffee Talk will be released in autumn 2024]. Igromania (in Russian). Archived from the original on 1 March 2024. Retrieved 9 March 2024.
  43. ^ Preston, Alx (18 April 2022). "Heart to Heart w/Kim Belair: Narrative for Hyper Light Braker". Heart Machine. Archived from the original on 19 April 2022. Retrieved 7 March 2024.
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