Sweet Baby Inc. and the Steam Curator Group Conspiracy - The company that is responsible for the diarrheic video game writing.

[Xebi]

Actually, I don't know if this has been mentioned yet. I've been out for a while and haven't seen as many people talk about it in general.

Currently they're trying to evolve DEI. Not a rebranding, but an actual upgrade. Instead of having DEI consultancy groups, they want to make it a part of the entire company instead. That way we won't be able to point to single individuals yadda yadda... basically, they're trying to go underground right now.

WeAreBridge.com

Credit on this goes to the vtuber Kirsche for discovering this, and who's been trying to extensively cover it, with a more detailed explanation.

I never quite understood their obsession with the "Dog whistles" terminology, but it seems if you pay close attention, you can actually spot the companies.
So whilst there are indeed companies trying to get away from DEI currently. Chances are, there's other companies saying they're firing the DEI team, likely to integrate it deeper into the company.

Keep an eye out for those that try to virtue signal, whilst still including the D and I in their messaging, probably pretending it stands for integrity. Very sus.
Other companies will straight up say they remain committed to inclusion and diversity. Dropping the Equity because it's become too cursed of a word to promote with anymore.

 

[Big Brown Schlub]

Speaking of VAs, there's such a fucking chasm between the JP and the American VA industry and it's clear because the former has actual schools and training while the latter just got there by suckin' and fuckin' since none of those pieces of shit have any range. There's a good reason FromSoftware just goes for Bri'ish theater actors for their VAs, they actually know what the fuck they're doing.

 

[marvlouslie]

Kirsche's the canary in the coal mine, because she's been trying to get people to pay attention to what they're doing with DEI for fucking MONTHS, and they're out here celebrating that it's "being delt with". It's called "restructuring". The champions of DEI realize that they can get away with far more heinous shit if they're not open about it, but honestly, I don't even know if they WILL be able to get away with anything anymore because everything's so out in the open. People who know anything about how the modern gaming industry is structured will be paying attention. We WILL be watching. We WON'T be purchasing.

 

[FedPostalService]

Who knew that lowering your standards to bring in people to force diversity would destroy an industry? Except all of us, of course.

 

[Incecticyder]

Actually, I don't know if this has been mentioned yet. I've been out for a while and haven't seen as many people talk about it in general.

Currently they're trying to evolve DEI. Not a rebranding, but an actual upgrade. Instead of having DEI consultancy groups, they want to make it a part of the entire company instead. That way we won't be able to point to single individuals yadda yadda... basically, they're trying to go underground right now.

WeAreBridge.com

Credit on this goes to the vtuber Kirsche for discovering this, and who's been trying to extensively cover it, with a more detailed explanation.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=3vg1fsaZO8M
I never quite understood their obsession with the "Dog whistles" terminology, but it seems if you pay close attention, you can actually spot the companies.
So whilst there are indeed companies trying to get away from DEI currently. Chances are, there's other companies saying they're firing the DEI team, likely to integrate it deeper into the company.

Keep an eye out for those that try to virtue signal, whilst still including the D and I in their messaging, probably pretending it stands for integrity. Very sus.
Other companies will straight up say they remain committed to inclusion and diversity. Dropping the Equity because it's become too cursed of a word to promote with anymore.

Kirsche's the canary in the coal mine, because she's been trying to get people to pay attention to what they're doing with DEI for fucking MONTHS, and they're out here celebrating that it's "being delt with". It's called "restructuring". The champions of DEI realize that they can get away with far more heinous shit if they're not open about it, but honestly, I don't even know if they WILL be able to get away with anything anymore because everything's so out in the open. People who know anything about how the modern gaming industry is structured will be paying attention. We WILL be watching. We WON'T be purchasing.

They cannot hide it. If they do it does not count in the eyes of many of the woke crowd. The virtue signal must be heard around the world.

 

[TrainWreckWatcher]

Its not so much hide as much as they want to make it the normal, you don't need an office of it because you have it so natural in your job its expected.

 

[Judge Dredd]

I never quite understood their obsession with the "Dog whistles" terminology, but it seems if you pay close attention, you can actually spot the companies.

Not watched the video so sorry if I get the context wrong.

They obsess over "dog whistles" because they use them all the time, and it's a convenient way to take something someone is saying, and twist it into something they're not saying.

A simple example goes all the way back to internet feminism. The difference between a nice guy and a Nice Guy is that a nice guy is a guy that is nice, while a Nice Guy is a creep who is just pretending to be nice to get a woman to have sex with him. How can they tell the difference? How do you know which is being talked about at a speech or lecture? The joke is, they're the same thing, this is just a handy excuse for feminists to use for why they keep fucking scumbags. It also works as a Motte and Baily debate tactic. You see this in modern politics with the phrase "our democracy".

The other reason is it gets people to play the denial game. To demonstrate what I mean.
"Hi. I'm Ted the biker. I want to start by saying I have not killed anyone. I don't do drugs. I don't have a 3kg bag of cocaine. I have no intention of going to your house to break your windows."
So, when I ask you about Ted the biker, what immediately springs to mind?

 

[ShitLurker]

I never said AI is going to fix them - it's just going to save them them on some costs while churning out the same garbage some "Writer" with pronouns in their Blue.Sky bio was going to write.

Most of these games get as far as they do because they get pitched as "extremely popular game that makes on of money but our version" (aka why games are 4 person squad shooters/co op games, imposter/werewolf games, asymmetrical PVP games, Battle Royales, etc) or some out of touch exec sees something and goes "yeah let's do that".

Bigger problem is when they got the pitch it may have been true, but the stupidly high (and growing) turnout time from pitch to release can easilly make hot new thing be "gayest old hat" when it hits the market. This is without even including DEI faggotry which already makes a bad and dated product look like a poisonous frog in a rave.

Trend chasing us horrible business unless you can hit the market while interest is high, it's how Fortnite stole Battlegrounds thunder. But releasing hero shooters years after Overwatch had become a zombie? Way too late.

They cannot hide it. If they do it does not count in the eyes of many of the woke crowd. The virtue signal must be heard around the world.

Its not so much hide as much as they want to make it the normal, you don't need an office of it because you have it so natural in your job its expected.

They can hide it and normalice it in corpo land all they want, but the end result will still be the same and will not fool anyone that is mildly aware of this shit. Games will keep failing harder and harder and instead of blaming SBI they'll just blame Ubisoft and cut the middle man. Brilliant fucking play faggots.

 

[TrainWreckWatcher]

They can hide it and normalice it in corpo land all they want, but the end result will still be the same and will not fool anyone that is mildly aware of this shit. Games will keep failing harder and harder and instead of blaming SBI they'll just blame Ubisoft and cut the middle man. Brilliant fucking play faggots.

Given the recent ubisoft investor call, and their star wars game and AC game.
Mark me optimistic, but I think Ubisoft is gonna be in deep shit fingers crossed for a collapse.

 

[Tanner Glass]

Bigger problem is when they got the pitch it may have been true, but the stupidly high (and growing) turnout time from pitch to release can easilly make hot new thing be "gayest old hat" when it hits the market. This is without even including DEI faggotry which already makes a bad and dated product look like a poisonous frog in a rave.

Trend chasing us horrible business unless you can hit the market while interest is high, it's how Fortnite stole Battlegrounds thunder. But releasing hero shooters years after Overwatch had become a zombie? Way too late.

The pitch is almost never true though.

If the game already exists - it's already captured the market. There's an inherent "buy in" for that community that they've already committed to (the purchase price, the achievements, the skins, whatever) that you have to overcome substantially to steal the market.

Fortnite succeeded in a lot of ways over PUBG but primarily because it was substantially more streamlined, unbelievably more stable, actually more fun, had it's own aesthetic, was more of an "arcade" game than a "simulation" game, and was some that appealed to a younger audience. PUBG was popular but in a really rough state.

Companies are out here trying to pitch shit like "It's like the Division (2016) but with the Suicide Squad instead" or "It's like Borderlands 2 (2013) but with vampires and 0 fun" (Redfall). They're doomed before they start and should know better.

The real energy games comes from passionate developers - you can't just hire a consultant (even a non DEI consultant) and hope the problem just magically fixes itself.

 

[Back me up!]

The real energy games comes from passionate developers - you can't just hire a consultant (even a non DEI consultant) and hope the problem just magically fixes itself.

Which is why I really hope we start seeing massive shrinkage of the dev space to just small teams giving a moderate amount of money with a few blockbuster games a year. Sort of how the movie industry operated while when there was a DVD market to fall back on.

Small teams also mean the death of DEI since it VERY apparent when some one is not pulling their weight. Its also while I'm actually looking forward to AI useage in games. If a dedicated and talented person can use a AI to clean up grunt work art/code check/etc as performance boost instead of a replacement then the appeal of a smaller, lighter, faster team full of people that WANT to create becomes even more appealing to the money people.

 

[Xebi]

Not watched the video so sorry if I get the context wrong.

They obsess over "dog whistles" because they use them all the time, and it's a convenient way to take something someone is saying, and twist it into something they're not saying.

A simple example goes all the way back to internet feminism. The difference between a nice guy and a Nice Guy is that a nice guy is a guy that is nice, while a Nice Guy is a creep who is just pretending to be nice to get a woman to have sex with him. How can they tell the difference? How do you know which is being talked about at a speech or lecture? The joke is, they're the same thing, this is just a handy excuse for feminists to use for why they keep fucking scumbags. It also works as a Motte and Baily debate tactic. You see this in modern politics with the phrase "our democracy".

The other reason is it gets people to play the denial game. To demonstrate what I mean.
"Hi. I'm Ted the biker. I want to start by saying I have not killed anyone. I don't do drugs. I don't have a 3kg bag of cocaine. I have no intention of going to your house to break your windows."
So, when I ask you about Ted the biker, what immediately springs to mind?

Yeah, that seems the most prominent one, however this one I found a bit more interesting

They cannot hide it. If they do it does not count in the eyes of many of the woke crowd. The virtue signal must be heard around the world.

Indeed, it's why the 'good little ally companies' will say they're firing DEI, but in the same breath tell how they'll remain committed to the cause, and most likely will keep some kind of D&I in.

Given the recent ubisoft investor call, and their star wars game and AC game.
Mark me optimistic, but I think Ubisoft is gonna be in deep shit fingers crossed for a collapse.

This is assuming it's all going through investors. Whilst we've already seen some Canadian government involvement.

I'll remain skeptic 'till I see it. Preferably with a big dose of karma to those companies.

 

[ShitLurker]

Given the recent ubisoft investor call, and their star wars game and AC game.
Mark me optimistic, but I think Ubisoft is gonna be in deep shit fingers crossed for a collapse.

Any links to this? Sounds like it was fun.

The pitch is almost never true though.

Doesn't invalidate my point. Your pitch can be both stupid AND come incredibly late to the market. Soulslike games are for example hiting saturation point, the later your iteration comes out, the more likely you will just get an "I'm sick of this" reaction.

Imagine a world where during the platformer or fighting game heyday instead of being able to drop a game in a year, it took 3 to 5. A lot of shit came out in that time, but at least it was relevant to the market when it came out, imagine fucking Gex coming out during the end of the playsttion lifecycle.

That aside you are right that smaller teams with smaller scopes composed by people who actually care about what they are doing will bring much greater results. Sadly, they all seem trapped in "NEXT BIG THING!" mode since multiple mildly successful with a couple of stinkers and winmers here and there doesn't make line go up overnight. So the AAAA industry seems to be happy perperually trapped in the rat race.

 

[Tanner Glass]

Doesn't invalidate my point. Your pitch can be both stupid AND come incredibly late to the market. Soulslike games are for example hiting saturation point, the later your iteration comes out, the more likely you will just get an "I'm sick of this" reaction.

Imagine a world where during the platformer or fighting game heyday instead of being able to drop a game in a year, it took 3 to 5. A lot of shit came out in that time, but at least it was relevant to the market when it came out, imagine fucking Gex coming out during the end of the playsttion lifecycle.

That aside you are right that smaller teams with smaller scopes composed by people who actually care about what they are doing will bring much greater results. Sadly, they all seem trapped in "NEXT BIG THING!" mode since multiple mildly successful with a couple of stinkers and winmers here and there doesn't make line go up overnight. So the AAAA industry seems to be happy perperually trapped in the rat race.

It wasn't supposed to invalidate your point - just pointing having a pitch using an existing game as a base with 0 innovation is going to be a recipe for disaster (Anthem, Redfall, KTJL, etc). It's the video game version of "Let's make another Spiderman movie - where it's his origin story again"

It doesn't matter the size of the team - but someone on the team needs to have a vision. Companies outsourcing to consultants (like SBI) is a tacit admission they do not have any leadership with vision.

 

[ShitLurker]

It wasn't supposed to invalidate your point - just pointing having a pitch using an existing game as a base with 0 innovation is going to be a recipe for disaster (Anthem, Redfall, KTJL, etc). It's the video game version of "Let's make another Spiderman movie - where it's his origin story again"

It doesn't matter the size of the team - but someone on the team needs to have a vision. Companies outsourcing to consultants (like SBI) is a tacit admission they do not have any leadership with vision.

Fully agree. Thing is apathy probably hit hard. For the grand majority it's a 9 to 5 job and the more retards involved in making it, the slower it will go.

The truly passionate ones already went indie, tried to form their own studios or just shifted to other professional sectors.

In that sense AI may be huge in keeping things focused. Getting what you want by iterating through image models via AI is probably more efficient once you get the hang of it than chat/mail chains with some other guy in añother department that has to check about deliverables and dates with his middle manager.

 

[Incecticyder]

They can hide it and normalice it in corpo land all they want, but the end result will still be the same and will not fool anyone that is mildly aware of this shit. Games will keep failing harder and harder and instead of blaming SBI they'll just blame Ubisoft and cut the middle man. Brilliant fucking play faggots.

Indeed, it's why the 'good little ally companies' will say they're firing DEI, but in the same breath tell how they'll remain committed to the cause, and most likely will keep some kind of D&I in.

They can try to normalise it but people are reacting negatively on anything that even sounds similar. Virtue signaling has to remain loud and clear. It is not about doing good but, rather, to appear that they do good. They would never help people of color if it did not earn them asspats. Which helps us because for their virtue signaling to work, they have to announce it and thus become vulnerable.

 

[Ser Prize]

At this point I'm going to avoid body type A/B games. I don't care if they're good games or not. Its just fucking retarded and I don't want to give money to that.

Indie games are doing it now, too, except they just disguise it as "the characters are non-binary/genderless!"

I hate it, man. Why does this shit gotta ruin my farm sims.

 

[X Prime]

I hate it, man. Why does this shit gotta ruin my farm sims.

HRT and autism, like crack and blacks, etc.

 

[Verpa Teutonica Ingens]

HRT and autism, like crack and blacks, etc.

Even worse. At least "crack" and "black" rhyme, but you can't say the same about "HRT" and "autism".

 

[CertifiedFedBot]

Indie games are doing it now, too, except they just disguise it as "the characters are non-binary/genderless!"

I hate it, man. Why does this shit gotta ruin my farm sims.

I for one can't wait until all the gender bullshit gets so creepy and unpopular that adding it in is a pre-emptive deathrattle for any project. With more big public stories like the Chris Tyson scandal people are starting to associate all the genderspecial and tranny shit with pedophiles.