With a seemingly endless stream ofmass layoffsandstudio closures, its hard to disagree.
But job stability isnt the only force at play here.
Then, all of a sudden, it was everywhere.
If you believe DEI is ruining games, you probably shouldn’t use objectively great games as your example.
Throughout 2024, it has culminated in what many are referring to as GamerGate 2.0.
Sweet Baby is a work-for-hire company, like a lot of these other consultant companies are.
People hire us to do the work.
In October 2023, the discourse around Sweet Baby kicked off on message boards.
It’s not how it works.
That’s not what we do, says Roberts.
We didn’t put pride flags in Spider-Man 2.
This has all been on the internet.
It’s all out there.
We didn’t make Saga Black in Alan Wake 2.
That’s not what happens.
Sweet Baby is a narrative development company that is hired by other companies.
One of the more frustrating things about this whole thing is like, This is what Sweet Baby does.
They’re the DEI company.
So, I asked Roberts what a narrative consultant actually does.
And yes, sometimes that takes the form of authenticity, sensitivity, and diversity and things like that.
Like, I would have loved to work onDragon Age: The Veilguard.
That series is great.
But no, we did not work on Dragon Age.
Misinformation online is nothing new, particularly on YouTube and Twitter.
With this in mind, Roberts feels like a campaign like the one were seeing now was inevitable.
So that part of it hasn’t changed.
But it certainly does seem to be a lot easier now.
Many are making careers off the back of hate against Sweet Baby.
It would be a lot for anyone to handle, let alone a company of just 16 employees.
But Roberts says theyve responded by just getting back to work.
Roberts says that it hasnt stopped Sweet Baby from getting work either.
Nobody was pulling that support.
It would have been nice to have seen more people and institutions learn the lessons of ten years ago.
Despite this, Sweet Baby isnt going anywhere.
While Roberts left Sweet Baby earlier this month, he has no intention of leaving the industry.
I would go back to work at Sweet Baby in a heartbeat.
I would hire Sweet Baby in a heartbeat, he says.
The world is the way it is now.
These games are more inclusive for people.
And so, no matter what these people do, they’re not gonna stop us.
Theyre not going to stop the way that the world is now.
Being trans leads to unique dialogue options in Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
