 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Video games |
| Founded | 2018; 7 years ago (2018) inMontreal, Canada |
| Founders |
|
| Headquarters | Montreal ,Canada |
Key people | |
Number of employees | 16 (2024) |
| Website | sweetbabyinc |
Sweet Baby Inc. is a Canadian narrative development and consultation studio based inMontreal. Founded by formerUbisoft developers, including scriptwriter Kim Belair and product manager David Bédard, the company consults on video game narratives duringdevelopment to promotediversity, equity, and inclusion within game narratives and studios. Sweet Baby has consulted with several developers and games, includingSable,God of War Ragnarök, andAlan Wake 2. In 2023, the studio became the target of online users who claimed it promoted a "woke agenda".
Sweet Baby Inc. was founded inMontreal in 2018 by formerUbisoft developers,[2][3] including scriptwriter Kim Belair and product manager David Bédard.[2][1][4] Belair became Sweet Baby'schief executive officer and Bédard thechief operating officer.[2][5] Belair said that she founded the company to promote the advancement of women andmarginalized groups in thevideo game industry.[2]
The company consults on game narratives duringdevelopment and promotes gender and racial diversity in development teams, including correct and consistent pay, training, andcredits.[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 onUnknown 9, atransmedia 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 ofGod of War Ragnarök,[13] focusing on making theblack character Angrboda more relatable to black audiences while acknowledging the game'sNorse mythology.[3][5] Sweet Baby joined the development ofGoodbye Volcano High in 2020[14] and led the narrative team after development rebooted in 2021.[15]
In 2022, the studio developedLost Your Marbles for thePlaydate 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 andReel 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 joinedAfterlove EP as consultants after the death of writer and designer Mohammad Fahmi in 2022, having been speaking with Fahmi before his death.[18] Belair assistedRemedy Entertainment in refining the background and story arc of Saga Anderson, the protagonist ofAlan Wake 2,[5][19] and worked with A44 Games in developing Nor Vanek, the protagonist ofFlintlock: The Siege of Dawn.[20] The studio joined the production ofSuicide 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 forMarvel's Spider-Man 2.[5][7] As of April 2024, Sweet Baby had 16 employees.[5][21]
In October 2023, Sweet Baby attracted negative attention onKiwi Farms, aweb forum where a user described the company's involvement withAlan Wake 2 as "possibly one of the biggest scandals in gaming history";[7] similar posts were shared on sites like4chan and theReddit communityr/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 aSteam 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'scode 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 relatedDiscord 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 violatingterms 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 companyBlackRock,[5] that it forced Remedy to makeAlan 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 asSuicide Squad [a] and forrecent 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 ondiversity and inclusion; she noted gamers thought the studio had simply addedpride flags toMarvel'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 attempteddoxing in response to the backlash,[5][7][22] with attention drawn towards the company and its employees by high-profile social media accounts includingElon Musk,Matt Walsh, andLibs of TikTok.[12][21] Others who faced harassment includedKotaku's reporter who first highlighted the backlash[21][23] and developers who worked with or publicly supported Sweet Baby.[12] Several journalists andcontent creators compared it toGamergate,[7][22][32] andTheGamer's Stacey Henley called it "the latestdogwhistle for rejectingprogressive 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, likeInsomniac Games, offered advice on moving past the backlash based on their own experiences with harassment,[5][7] and several developers and consultants, likeRami Ismail andSteve 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] andGame Developer's Bryant Francis urged Steam and Discord to clarify their policies to avoid similar incidents and further harassment.[22]
| 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] |
| Space Tow Truck | Eric Laflamme | Writing and narrative design | [38] | |
| Sable | Shedworks | Writing and characters | [2][39] | |
| 2022 | Lost Your Marbles | Sweet Baby Inc. | Full development | [16][39] |
| Gotham Knights | WB Games Montréal | Scriptwriting | [40] | |
| God of War Ragnarök | Santa Monica Studio | Narrative and character consultation | [3][39] | |
| 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][39] | |
| Quantum Phantom Basketball | Brenda Arts | Writing and production | [41] | |
| The Crew Motorfest | Ubisoft Ivory Tower | Proofreading, additional writing | [24][39] | |
| Kingdom Eighties | Fury Studios | Additional writing | [42] | |
| Marvel's Spider-Man 2 | Insomniac Games | Story consultation | [2][39] | |
| Alan Wake 2 | Remedy Entertainment | Characters, sensitivity reading | [3][39] | |
| 2024 | Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League | Rocksteady Studios | Scriptwriting (audio logs, non-player characters) | [2][39] |
| Tales of Kenzera: Zau | Surgent Studios | Narrative | [41] | |
| Capes | Spitfire Interactive | Character consultation | [39] | |
| Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn | A44 Games | Writing and characters | [20] | |
| Battle Shapers | Metric Empire | Narrative direction, design, writing, world | [39] | |
| 2025 | Afterlove EP | Pikselnesia | Narrative design and writing | [18][43] |
| South of Midnight | Compulsion Games | Story development, cultural and character consultation | [39][44] | |
| Usual June | Finji | Narrative and characters | [39][45] | |
| 2026 | Marvel's Wolverine | Insomniac Games | Story consultation | [2] |
| TBA | Breeze in the Clouds | Stormy Nights Interactive | Narrative design and consultation | [46] |
| Hyper Light Breaker | Heart Machine | Story structure and character development | [46][47] | |
| Cancelled | Contraband | Avalanche Studios | Sensitivity reading, scriptwriting | [46] |
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