The culture wars are also brewing in the video game sector, and the Sweet Baby studio in Montreal now finds itself on the front lines, the victim of a global campaign of cyberharassment.
The company specializing in consultation on narration and dialogue is the target of a reactionary online movement, often very aggressive, which accuses it of “wokizing” the games on which it works. Critics sometimes drift towards conspiracy theories as well as racist and sexist comments.
For almost six months now, the sixteen employees and managers of Sweet Baby have received thousands of emails of insults and threats (sometimes of death), obviously anonymous, from all over the planet, the sector being globalized.
Even billionaire Elon Musk, founder of Tesla, got involved on its X platform writing: “Video games need to get rid of the [bullshit] woke. People don’t play it to be lectured by tedious propaganda! »
“It’s really outrageous when the richest man on Earth says we’re a stain on the video game industry, when Sweet Baby is just a consulting company in the sector, with 16 people based in Montreal,” comments Duty David Bédard, director and head of operations of the studio he co-founded in 2019 with screenwriter Kim Belair.
“Players have developed discontent with an industry that is changing, which wants to be more inclusive, which is more diverse,” explains the director. “When they discovered our existence, they made us the scapegoat for these changes. We are accused of a lot of things that we have nothing to do with, and this campaign of harassment has been going on for six months. »
Sweet Baby offers production companies scriptwriting assistance services for a complete game or the writing of scenes or dialogue. Some of these interventions are made to make games more respectful of diversity, equity and inclusion standards — by practicing sensitive reading, for example. The firm participated in the creation of the black character of Angrboda in the world of Nordic mythology God of War Ragnarok (2022). She also supported the scriptwriting of major productions such as Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (2020), Dungeons and Dragons: Dark Alliance (2021) or Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League (2024).
“We created a writer’s room with 10 screenwriters and 6 producers, a team which is now, in my opinion, world-renowned,” says Mr. Bédard.
“Our mission is to help studios tell better stories, more authentic stories. We are accused of spreading a woke agenda, of forcing game producers to include all kinds of messages and all kinds of things in their games. When, in reality, we are consultants. And that our clients make their decisions sometimes after five or six layers of information. »
Online mobilization
Certain (let’s say) diversified transformations, sometimes simply suggested in order to avoid awkwardness, greatly displease a more conservative segment of video game enthusiasts.
The first salvos were launched last October on the Kiwi Farms discussion forum, known for its harassment campaigns and its role in disseminating the racist manifesto of the Christchurch shooter, in New Zealand, in 2019. The shootings continued on the 4chan and Reddit forums. A group linked to the movement created on the Steam purchasing platform on January 29 has now swelled to more than 300,000 subscribers; another on the social media Discord brings together thousands. Their members track down works where Sweet Baby may have appeared to recommend that players avoid them.
The accusations generally relate to what is perceived as excessive diversity sensitivity. The strong scene of the game Suicide Squad where the female character Harley Quinn defeats the virile Batman sparked hostilities. The appearance of the black woman Saga Anderson as one of the protagonists of the game Alan Wake 2 set the networks on fire. Detractors have even made Sweet Baby responsible (without any evidence) for the relative commercial difficulties of Spider-Man 2 and recent massive layoffs in the video game sector.
Director Bédard assures that his clients have all remained united with Sweet Baby, who persists and signs contracts. “We are practicing a form of innovation in a cultural field that is too homogenized, where all kinds of stories and perspectives are not sufficiently represented. We are trying to create a more inclusive world to have more variety,” he says.