It's much deeper than Sweetbaby. Want to support me further? I now have a Patreon. / kirayt ------------------------------------------------------------ #sweetbaby #2024 #documentary
The main people involved in Sweetbigot Inc and Black Girl Grifters have flat out said they hate white men and white people in general. Don’t know what he wants before calling racism, racism, a notarized affidavit affirming they’re racist?
"There is no such thing as white people" and "you can't be racist to white people" are both genocidally racist statements, yes. They require a us centric worldview that is ignorant of the wider history of the world. The people that believe and say these things have a dualistic perspective of reality that forces everyone into one of two sides: ex slaves and ex slave owners. As a brit descended from a famous abolitionist with an Ethiopian great grandmother, its preposterous racism on its face. My country abolished slavery. Across the whole world to the best of our ability. Because it was the right thing to do. In my country it has been illegal to be a slave for a thousand years, you became free the moment your feet touched english soil. Irrespective of skin colour. You don't lecture me about racism. Not when everything you're saying is obviously racist to white people and completely ignorant of just about anything that's happened outside of the USA for the last two millennia.
TL;DR "Pay us to be a consulting firm and we won't complain about you on the internet" is essentially harassment, and it also borders on legal definitions of "racketeering."
Some of their employees are also heavily involved in the production of games like Unknown 9 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-prcILJVMBwo.htmlsi=YhGh3FzT87bWWNbD
When game journalism was printed in magazine form (Nintendo Power, PlayStation Magazine, etc.) it was written to be as inoffensive as possible because you had the cost of printing, manufacturing, and delivery. Companies didn't take a stance on anything because if you alienated 50+% of your customers, you incurred a lot of cost for no compensation. Now that it's online, anyone can write anything, even people with dingus takes "The best part of the internet is everyone gets a voice. The worst part of the internet is everyone gets a voice"
Companies weren’t hijacked by woke cultists back then. The cultists were still stuck in the shadows of Hollywood and academia, slowly but systematically indoctrinating more and more people, who in turn did the same to even more. Once they had enough zealots in key positions to hijack companies, political movements, change laws, and do wide scale social engineering, you saw this explosion of coordinated ideological warfare begin.
The main issue, it seems, is as it was then: games journalists who refuse to do their jobs right suck, terrible games also suck, bigotry sucks and claiming to fight bigotry does not mean one cannot also be bigoted, which makes one suck.
I think the main problem with quote-unquote games journalism has always fundamentally been being too close to the industry and often even being controlled by the big game companies. Just look at what's happened at Kotaku where their management is basically saying that they need to focus more on terrible guides that no one uses rather than talking about the actual issues and stuff going on in the video games world. It's not that they're refusing to do their job, it's often that they literally can't without losing their jobs. Look at what happened to Zero Punctuation! The real shame I always feel when it comes to this cycle of "gating" in the games industry is that, if the gamergaters just looked at things objectively and stopped shilling for and defending the companies and literally the worse parts of said companies, they'd actually find they and journalists are on the same side, but, unfortunately, a lot of gamers also want their bigotry to go unreported on and so they go after the journalists and not the companies who are slowly and surely making all of their games worse. And gamers by and large fall for it literally every single time.
@@StCrimson667 The fuck? Part of why Gamergate was against the journos was because they were IN BED WITH THE BIG COMPANIES! Not to mention ever since the original Gamergate movement fizzled, the journalists went out of their way to antagonize and contradict gamers every time they had a bone to pick with a publisher for a bad release or anti-consumer practice.
@@PunkrockNoir-ss2pq because you could only make that statement here in the United States if you had no idea what the definition of racism actually is.
@@user-account-not-foundwhich definition. The original or the new one made by DEI pushers? Because the real definition of racism has nothing to do with what is happening now. You can be racist no matter who you are. End of story.
This drama is what pushed me to spend less time on sites like Reddit and Twitter, and it's been a genuine huge help on my mental health. Don't engage with the culture war, folks, it'll drain you like a vampire.
I seriously needed to read this. I realize that I have spent hours arguing with these people and have been slowly turning into a bitter bastard who is pissed off at everything. I let myself get so worked up when the best thing to do is get the hell off of social media and just walk away.
That Alyssa girl is so out of touch coming up with her own definitions of what racism is and who can be racist. Its not surprising though. Thing is racism isn't just skin color based, it can expand to nationalities etc. Her view of a white person is that of someone in the US. White people like other races are not a monolith. I've experienced racism as a young teen because of my nationality by other white people and I'm white European. You see similar things happen with Asian people, how there's animosity between Koreans, Japanese and Chinese because of past history, I'm sure some black people experience racism from other black people because of nationality outside of the US. Anytime you remove the individuality from a person and view them based of features and traits they had no choice over that is bad.
@@TheCrimsonElite666 It's like people have forgotten their own history, as you said, for the longest time people of Irish descent were not considered "white" despite being exactly that, in both the US and the UK, the Irish got treated like shit. So saying you cannot be racists to white people is..well it's just not true. Fascists will always find a way to 'other' an enemy that isn't the 'ideal' of blond hair and blue eyed. In fact when old Oswald Mosley tried to march his British version of the Blackshirts through London, the Irish were one of the groups of people who rallied (along with people of Jewish descent, Communists, Anarchists, a couple of Musilm sailors) to stop the march because you can be damned sure that if Oswald got into power, he was going to do exactly the same to the Irish as the Nazis in Germany were doing to every other person that didn't meet their ideal, regardless of skin color.
@@TheCrimsonElite666or polish, Italian, Greek, Ukrainian, really any white ethic group that wasn’t one of the Great European powers during the Age of Colonial Empire.
She has a tattoo that says "All men are the enemy", what did you expect? But when she was a cam-girl she was pretty happy about the money "the enemy" gave her. EDIT: As for black people experiencing racism from other black people, there were entire tribes in Africa that would enslave the neighbouring tribe, and sell them to the Europeans
Its because racism and opression is basically treated as a ladder. There was a few years ago a pretty big video from an asian creator calling out racism against asians in the black community. He pointed out that the modern perception of this is basically that there is a ladder of opression and if you are higher on the ladder i.e. more opressed you cant be held acountable by people who are lower on the ladder. Thats why when asians called out the racism of black people the general response was not to talk about it or condem int publicly but instead insist on not getting divided against the true enemy (white people) and basically telling asians to shut up about it. (BTW I am not ígnoring that asians can be and are racist against black people and neither did the video I referenced.) There are many people today that think like this, that as long as you are "more opressed" then another group of people you can treat them however you want and that is justified and since white people are at the very bottom of the ladder of opression everything you do to them is fine, they are not people they are white people and thats not racist in their mind.
And her friend and PR person was Maya Felix Kramer, aka Legobutts, who now works on SBI, company funded by Baby Ghosts, co-owned by Eileen Holowka, sister of the aforementioned self-deleted, and besties with Zoë and Anita, same Eileen who blandly described what happened to him as him "passing away".
@@Rockthenashtah None of her allegations could ever be proved, and there are social media posts from her saying "I went here, I was there" at times when he allegedly had her confined, for example.
@@user-account-not-found she has the right to say it and we have the right to point out she's objectively a terrible person and to not buy games she worked on.
Again, just a reminder I've been a black gamer for over thirty years at this point. According to these people, I and those like me have never existed! Fucking tiring! 😮💨
Gaming journalism has always been utter shit. Guides filled with irrelevant nonsense, "leaks" that just echoes the same (incorrect) rumors and an ungodly amount of adds or "1,700+ vendors are interested in your cookies" while crying over adblockers. Just shut it all down already, please.
It's because they are disingenuous and dishonest state actors, potentially foreign agents, here to sow dissent and division. These people are RICH. They are situated in an industry full of creativity and artistic freedoms and yet, they use it to create shallow divisive characters and statements and spread hate. If they wanted to make relatable characters, they could. It has been done in the past plenty of times. But these people are clearly not interested in it, and i wish more people were aware of this. They don't care about minorities, they don't care about racism, they only care about the hatred they can fan by spewing bullshit.
most if not all of the over the top comments like the one kira showed, are jokes. Simply reversing the type of hate we/they get, the other way, to just really hit home how mean it is and put it in perspective. Of course there are some who do actually feel that way and I mean, I understand their view though I don't fully agree with it, us (white people) have historically excluded and discriminated other races for years in most parts of the world. straight/cis people constantly exclude and discriminate against LGBT people. of course it's not everyone, but it is a lot if not most. After years of having to deal with this, it makes sense that they wouldn't be all that accepting until the other side shows they actually want to be inclusive and put the past behind them. When they say they hate white cis men, they're specifically talking about the ones that are constantly making their lives harder, the ones that sit by and let hate spread. and honestly, I can't blame them. It's simply a "why should we trust you when you were hateful against us for years and are still allowing hate to grow and not speaking out against it" type deal.
It makes me feel so good when someone says "no doubt you've heard of xxxx" and I legitimately have never heard. I love not being a part of any of it in any way.
This is me with almost anything that is popular or in current discourse and it's like living in a paradise. A paradise where trains are constantly colliding head on and the worst people are on them and you get to see it all unfold.
@@user-account-not-found gamers are just opinionated and want to be angry at stuff, watching from the sidelines is the best course. It's only until I stumble across a random recommendation that I even realise something is aparently an issue. "game is woke." oh is it now? fasinating. "character should be gay." Is that so? fasinating.
@@JuicedOnKids, the irony is if you listen to Sweet Baby Inc and their ilk, they're 100% opinionated and want to be angry at stuff: always looking for "injustices" to "fix". The people only upset at the gamers are only looking at one side. Look at both sides to get the full picture.
I was initially hesitant when I saw the subject of the video, because as you say in the video all nuances are lost on internet conversation, but you did a well thought video on the subject. Nowadays, it is rare to hear someone pondered and level-headed. So, for that I say thank you
It is so depressing that we seem to be losing any sense of nuance in public discourse. We divide into tribes and attack strawmen rather than actually listening to one another. The sad result is that this only creates greater polarization and more extreme views. It's a terrible downward spiral.
17:36 "when you say you hate white men, why people should take you seriously when you speak about inclusivity?" You nailed the issue in a single sentence. Well done!
@@mrbork7218 history for which white men today didnt ask for or contribute to so its still rather problematic to hate them for something they had no say in, in any case if you're going to say that you hate any race or gender, expect the consequences of your words.
Just as some additional context... Alyssa Mercante is now actively seeking dirt on content creators that have criticised her recent reporting, calling out to anyone with rumours about said content creators that she can use as ammunition to contact her via DMs or email. Namely Melonie Mac, who Alyssa had also publicly challenged to a fight at Creator Clash 5 months and 11 days ago with the tweet "Once again asking Melonie to join me in creator clash next year" in response to Melonie mocking a Kotaku article by calling the site "Gay".
Poor deluded woman, she thinks she can cancel Asmongold, and I love it. You can love Asmon, you can hate Asmon, or anything in between, but if you've watched 10 YT videos about the gaming industry, you've at least heard of him. He is a staple name, and nothing the Merchant can say will affect him at all xD
Yes and then they try to group all white people together or all black people together... I imagine an Irishman has quite a few differences with an englishman, just like i imagine an Ethiopian is quite different to a Haitian... People cant be individuals i guess...
Know what's also funny, go to Africa, see who are the racists there. No, I'm not talking about South Africa, the black folks in Afrika are racist as Fudge out there towards other black people. You got a wide spectrum of black people there, from pitch black to light brown and they hate each other to the bone, much worse then white on black racism....but you never hear the afro Americans who never set foot in Africa about that.
I think this would be the last time I will check into Kira's videos because Kira mentioned Brietbart as a reliable source, Brietbart is a fake news site which the founder is Steve Bannon who got charged with money laundering and conspiracy with schemes to defraud in the US. Google it. I'm so disappointed, now I have to question every single video of Kira's.
I am hearing about SBI and this whole drama for the first time in this video. I dunno, I guess I am living under a rock, but I also almost missed gamergate.
@@fgoogleinthea7475 I disagree, it's not spineless to state your opinion and detail all the reasons you arrived at that opinion and publish it to RU-vid, even though you know that people on both extremes are going to disagree with you - in fact I think it might be the opposite...
@@fgoogleinthea7475 I'm sure you'll be sorely missed. And BTW, "growing a spine" on RU-vid has been channel suicide for years now - he even had to censor "Nazi Germany" in his video so he could still hold on to the hope of making money off his hours of research, recording, and editing. Additionally, it's truly admirable and far more rare to see a nuanced and unbiased take on ANYTHING these days so I might stroll through your subscriptions to make sure I'm not subscribed to anyone feeding the divisiveness that's ruining every aspect of modern society.
@@HullabaLulu_ArtThere's something really important that Kira's not understanding: straight cis white men are the most privileged group of people on the planet. They literally cannot punch up because nobody is higher on the privilege hierarchy than them. Punching down is bigotry, but punching the top is not. You can be racist towards them, but that's not the same as reducing their privilege. It has almost no effect on their daily lives, whereas minorities have reasons to be afraid for their lives practically every day. I won't get into too many details here, but here's one extreme example: straight cis white men commit 99.7% of all mass-shootings in America. The rate of injustice just doesn't compare. Here's another point that gets completely ignored: 16:35 "Games just like other media should be telling a story or experience without tailoring it to someone based on these traits. Make stories that make sense to have those people in it." -- This is EXACTLY why DEI is necessary, because without it, they won't do that. At best, they'll shoehorn a minority in and call it a day, instead of making an inclusive experience. The problem is that people are being deceived into believing that DEI creates shoehorning, when it's the exact opposite. Without DEI, all we get is shoehorning and contempt for minorities.
@@ohav3893 It is a serious drama though. It just shows the ideological garbage that is seeping into every form of entertainment in the most anti-consumer manner possible. I am glad that it is happening though, as we right-wingers never let a good crisis go to waste.
@@Kalimdor199Menegroth more like "we right wingers never waste an opportunity to get angry over shit thats worth nothing". Get over it. Minorities exist and no bullshit Gamergate 2 will stop them from appearing in fiction
Part of growing away from division and prejudice is letting go of that 'other opinion is bad' mentality behind. It blocks dialogue, growth, and understanding. Brilliant video and closing thoughts Kira.
agreed and disagreed. Sometimes opinions are bad (like in a case of some saying a hateful opinion,) but yea. People need to be more accepting and understanding,... just kinda hard to do that when a large portion of the other side is constantly spewing tons of hate against you and calling you pedos and trying to make your life a living hell for literally no reason other than being yourself... but yea.
@@finalcipher457 it's not just "two sides", there's lots of different takes and opinions on the subject and you're not required to adhere to the left/right side of the argument. a more reasonable thing to do would be to simply look at other people's opinions, and pick away the parts that you personally agree with, and then the parts which you don't agree with, you know, form your own opinions and don't jump into the hivemind circlejerk of "we're the good guys and theyre the bad guys"
I tend to largely ignore gaming journalists, they are not worth the trouble. Most of them will jump on whatever will get them the most views regardless of what the truth actually is.
I mean look at Dragons Dogma 2, all the gaming journalists are bought and fake. That game runs like garbage even if you got a 7800X3D and a 4090 yet it got praised for being soooo good while it looks like a PS4 game needing hardware from 2030 - NEVER trust any gaming "journalists" or magazines. They are ALL liars trying to make you empty your wallet
Unfortunately they have an effect on games. They worry more about being in 100 hit pieces because they didn't adhere to what they want despite it being a good game.
Most gaming journalists are people who wanted to work as journalists but lack the skills to do so. Their reviews aren't trustworthy, because they're normally not even able to play a game without a baby level and they're bought by the gaming companies most of the times anyways, so why should I care about them.
This is intelligent, nuanced, and thorough. It will be attacked or ignored, and nothing meaningful will change. I have zero faith in our society. The internet has turned our world into an angry mob. I never understood what gaming "journalism" was supposed to accomplish anyway. It strikes me as a completely superfluous industry.
It was but at least getting the behind the scenes on beloved or upcoming games or tips from someone Relatable(TM) was a chill time that built hype. Then they started openly attacking their core audience (ya’know, the gamers), brazenly took handouts from the big companies, and making every fucking thing into something pointlessly raunchy or about the modern political landscape. It’s tiring. And now, boring.
Our society was like that long before the Internet. Black and white thinking and forming and going into echo chambers have been a thing for as long as humanity has been around.
@@zeogold , yep, and the Internet is what's allowed it to completely proliferate to this point. It's always been there, it's just impossible not to notice it anymore.
For me, I care about these bad actors saying the most toxic things and journalists are going to bat for them and even lying ( and lying by omission) to help them. These people don't care about us. Also, great video!
I feel so blessed that I grew out of getting ragebaited by the internet. I avoided this topic whenever it popped up on twitter, and i'm really happy. Pirate a movie, watch a video essay, play songs on spotify, take a walk with your dog and take a picture. Life is great when you ignore all these things.
FANTASTIC advice honestly. I don't think people (myself included) realize how effective ragebaiting is until you consciously start making the effort to not engage. It's always important to remember that social media sites thrive off engagement, and making people angry/starting arguments/etc is a very effective way of doing so.
This is what happens when you yell "Fire" in an empty theater. No one heard it, no one cared... until the media heard about it, then all hell breaks lose??? riiiiiight
This is why journalism is dead, they are all useless and they know it, so they make themselves relevant by fabricating nonsense to justify their existence
Hell, I didn't even know such firms even existed until this video came out. Like if anything breaks out Kira would be in the same level of Kotaku for starting some shitty controversy
I'm pretty sure he fairly directly says their views are pretty racist and anti diversity. By pretty sure I mean he definitely did say that. Did you watch the same video? I'm confused.
Almost as bad as toy and candy journalism. Can you believe how far its fallen. I need to know why is Mario actually a plumber this is very serious business that needs deep investigation or I will become emotional.
And the other thing they said: "This product isn't made for you." and then when it fails, they call the person who they directed the first statement to a "bigot".
It's not complex, or complicated at all. They invent a problem, and sell you the solution. It's a grift as old as time. It is no different than if I knocked on the door of a homeowner's house, convinced him that the sun was about to explode, and then sold him sun exploding insurance.
I wanted to hear both sides from Kira (as he says) but to my shock Kira mentioned Breitbart a fake news site which the founder (Steve Bannon) got charged with money laundering, conspiracy and schemes to defraud, in the US. You can google that yourself. Brietbart was also so unreliable in trying to make the Covid a joke as if the pandemic wasn't serious. That's how Breitbart's reputation is.
I've been thinking about the idea that "you can't be racist towards white people". This argument is coming from an academic line that states racism equals institutional power combined with prejudice. With that definition, no one can be racist towards white people because only the whites have institutional power. The next argument made is that non-whites can be "prejudiced" but not racist. As a result, when they attack white people with slurs and hate speech that would never be acceptable towards non-whites, when someone points out their racial statements, they argue that at worst they are merely "prejudiced". This is a very manipulative double standard that needs to be called out in a more sophisticated and confident way than it currently is. If I say "I hate black people" and get called a racist, whilst employees of places like Sweet Baby Inc can say "I hate whites" and then argue they cannot be racist, then there is something wrong. And when they make claims that they are looking to "take over" the industry, then that means they are looking for institutionalised power. If they harbour these racial hatreds, then all that is missing from their academic "racist" equation is that institutionalised power. They are not exactly showing that they will be trustworthy custodians of that power if they ever attain it. And they wonder why people are fighting back against a drive for "diversity" that on paper sounds wonderful, but in practice, lead as it is by such people as those associated with SBI, is nothing more than hate and racial vilification (the very things they claim to be against).
@@RaidenNin I watched both this video and the one on his Kira Reacts channel where he was even more inflammatory; I bet you didn't even know he made two videos on this. Interesting how arrogant someone can be and hold their opinion to such high regard that they think if someone has an opinion different than them, it must be that they did not watch the video. Wild to call someone an internet dweller and yet in order to see this comment, you had to have searched by newest and scrolled EXTREMELY far down, meaning you've read through almost a week's worth of comments to get here 🥴 And all to glaze and meatride Kira 🥴 The jokes write themselves.
@@krazyxki Wait... what did Kira say that was inflammatory? I'm very interested to know because I felt this is one of the LEAST inflammatory videos I've seen on the whole thing, as was the other video you referenced. Interested to see how we both watched it and felt it landed in completely different places.
Kira! You are spot-on as always. I had seen things flying across my RU-vid feed on Sweet Baby, but did not really pay attention, once I saw you had covered it, I knew at least I would get a balanced view. Thank you!
Nah, now we all gotta pick a side between the giant douches and the turd sandwiches or the winner will "cancel" or "gatekeep" us, depending on their own glossary.
Great video as always Kira 🙂 Just looked into some old websites. Would be cool to see a little doco on things like Lycos who used to own Wired now known as Wired magazine. I find that stuff interesting, not sure if anyone else might.
I work at a DEI company and got two comments about the video. 1. You're totally right, DEI companies are not to blame, because they are usually contractors that provide a cultural input based on market metrics. 2. This person, the CEO of Kotaku, is the extreme end of the culture war. None of my coworkers think like this, not even our CEO. And also: most of these issues stem from not knowing demographic shifts. The U.S. is the main market for most mainstream media, and the reality is that the white only demographic is declining. Most demographic groups in the U.S. have low birth rate except MENA and Latino immigrants. Black demographics are doing better overall financially, so they are now getting included. Call out on companies like SBI and Kotaku for being the extreme end, call out on groups for being extremists and hating people for their skin color, regardless if white or black, brown, whatever.
The only thing about that suicide squad game was that the entire writing team worked in SBI even though they tried to say they didn’t do much to the story.
Also barely anybody bought it... even before this shit kicked off, so I guess maybe people are learning? I did notice it creep up the top sellers on steam the week or so before it came out though, so the don't preorder anything you morons message still needs to be repeated.
Never heard any of this. Despite enjoying games, THIS is the reason I avoid game journalism on the Internet. Can't be arsed with the drama so just avoid it.
This video and the red pill one made me realize why i've been binging your videos. It's the acknowledgement of complexity and nuance in everything. Keep it up, it's a rare delight on the Inturnet 👍
This was really well done Kira. Great job. As a silent person who watched this all unfold in real time it's been crazy to see the games media go ballistic as it's happening.
they're the conditioned extremist, they've been trained like pathetic little attack hounds to bite at whatever their masters say. The fact that you have losers defending sbi despite them literally blackmailing clients that don't work with them says it all.
Some of their comments that Kira highlighted (and from others) made it impossible for me to side with them. That's just some batshit crazy right there.
@@charlisebar-shai2613In 10-15 years you will be deemed a bigot. And around and around we go. It never stops. And I hate to tell you this, but it's because of people like you.
Let's not forget that DEI is a very corporate concern, and that the purpose of modern games journalism is to _advertise_ not to _criticize._ The decisions about what to include and why are being funneled through a few very influential and very out-of-touch people at the top of a big pyramid. Games journalism being a reflection of corporate culture isn't surprising, since publishers and developers have a vested interest in their product's success. It's also unsurprising that these interests are willing to play dirty by slandering the opposition. The conjunction of these elements is where the "everyone who disagrees with me is a racist" narrative comes from: out-of-touch suits need a checklist to help them develop a diverse product, because they're incapable of doing so in a genuine way; they throw money at the problem and now expect dividends, because that's the promise of hiring someone to provide a service in this context; therefore any criticism of their product will hurt revenue, so they cannot accept any criticism as valid. It's always the suits, man.
To be honest your channel is one of maybe 3 I follow, that I have no problem watching videos on. Your takes are always as much on point and as reasonable as possible. I love it. Thanks Kira
And that "it doesn't matter if they change or add a few things" attitude is exactly how they push the window to "it's nothing" to "you're evil for not wanting it."
The culture war stuff is super weird, I feel like it fundamentally changes the points we're even arguing about with stuff like this. I feel like the entire topic could be summarized as "the games this company get involved in dont perform well and arent well received by fans". Its as simple as the product being bad.
It is at its core, absolutely. The companies are just as much to blame as SBI because they brought them in and continue to make the wrong decision. Ultimately, working with SBI is itself a bad business decision.
@@borkguyIt doesnt matter, SBI's association is NEVER a main determining factor of a game's failure. SBI likely was part of the Spiderman games, and those became a huge success. The games SBI is part of often fail mainly because of how bad the product is in general. SS:KJL was fucking abysmal and mostly unplayable. Its failure had nothing to do with Sweet Baby Inc., it was simply just a shit product with even more shit of a DRM bundled in. Anybody thinking all these games fail solely because SBI had their hands on it needs a real serious reality check. A vast majority of people simply just dont give a shit about SBI and bullshit political culture wars (which mind you, are only used as a distraction in attempt to turn people away from real issues), and only care about how good the game is. If the game is shit, it will fail. If the game is good, it will succeed. Thats it.
I’ve seen a few videos on this topic, but none of them were as clear and informative as this one. There’s no poisoning the well, there’s no extreme opinions, just a reasonable guy talking about an unreasonable situation. Honestly man, bravo. This video is excellent and describes something I’ve noticed but haven’t been able to put into words for years. Great video.
Hey, I don't comment a lot but I wanted to say thank you for the balanced reporting. I love your channel because I can keep up with the strange internet stuff. You can find out about celebrities anywhere but getting a detailed breakdown of the Sweet Baby stupidity, gold!
Superb. Probably the best video I’ve seen on the issue. I’ll agree that ultimately the publisher decides and signs off on what is in the game or not, I still think SBI - and others - have a power over these publishers. Like it’s already established in this video, the SBI and the gaming journalist sites can and will unite and mobilise against a perceived enemy - and they can and will dog pile and strong-arm a studio to hire them for consulting. It’s not organic and is a relatively recent practice because of that threat of a campaign against a studio for not having minorities, etc. I know you disagree with that. Nonetheless, what an excellent video. Top notch.
@@jaysmudger Comes across to me like a protection racket - a shakedown. They admitted it when saying “...terrify them if they don’t give you what you want...” Like they tried to dog pile CD Projekt for a poster in their game. Or Kingdom Come:Deliverance for having no minorities. Or Days Gone for having a white male protagonist. Those studios resisted at the time but, like KC:D studio War Horse, they’ve now signed up to all the ESG stuff. Some studios resist but you can imagine some saying “Just hire these consultants to avoid the hit pieces and negative press from a complicit media apparatus. They can’t accuse us of anything then.” In other words “...terrify them if they don’t give you what you want...”
. . . with the most *important* data point completely ignored : the money. Always follow the money. The sums involved explain every single decision made by publishers, studios, individual developers, media, etc - down to why these actors are the ones who first started referring to this "movement" as GG2.0. Follow the money.
@@vincelang3779 Yeah, fair point. It’s still the best breakdown of the series of events that I’ve seen. Nothing emotional or overtly political, just the timeline of events and the gist of what is happening.
You’ve missed a large part of why these big established companies employ consultants such as SBI. The diversity ideology is financially incentivised by ESG funding hence companies are encouraged to employ such consultants in the first place.
Bless you Kira for once more assuming I the viewer am not here because it was a video posted by this channel and I know anything about the topic discussed
you failed to mention SBI using extortion tactics to get their foot in the door in the first place. it's pretty hard to say that the devs have the last word, when you have the SBI CEO stateing publicly that they use terroristic tactics to get their way.
Newcastle University should revoke Alyssa Mercante’s degree, since she didn’t learn anything when she was studying for her journalism degree since she violated journalistic ethics
@@jonnywilson4408 Are any British universities really respected these days, out of a very select few? I mean shit, only uni i respect is Manchester for science and even then, it's specifically for science.
Fab content as always. very detailed and impartial. Unfortunately instead of hard work and being original, people find it easier to vilify others. Chill out do a good job and appreciate others. Thanks for posting
While I agree that journalists perpetuate this whole noise, I think it also distracts from issues like the various scummy practices of publishers(DRM, microtransactions, releasing unfinished and live service games, et cetera). Also I need to point out something in regards to how Gamergate started. It began with a blog post a developer's ex made that was picked up by 4chan(whether that was his intent or not is anyone's guess) and then the whole thing kicked off with Anita Sarkeesian, the journalists and on and on.
Hey Kira, I think you killed it with the video, I think you were great at being objective. I love how you did justice to both sides. I know it's a complex issue, but I think the only thing I'd say is it's tricky when studios do make new , fresh content, with no connection to prior characters, yet it receives hate for including characters from marginalized groups. That's the thing I struggle with, is when people get frustrated with that (e.g. the acolyte trailer coming out a few days ago and receiving incredible hatred for its inclusion of mostly minority characters). Anyway, thanks for the vid man, love the content!
What’s funny is that I GUARANTEE if she had a DNA ancestry test done it would come back showing she’s 80%+ white european. She leans fully into larping as a “person of color” for the victim points and power it gives her.
For me the 'bigger' issue with groups like Sweet Baby and Black Girl Gamers isn't that they exist, it's that they exist specifically to provide a service in term of narrative development BUT from what it's possible to see from where I am sitting they are particularly BAD at it.
IDK, have you played all the games they worked on? Do you know which games they were particularly deeply involved with from a narrative design perspective? I've looked at that list, some decent games on there so that's a dangerous argument to start making. Some shitters as well I grant you and admittedly, nothing I particularly love personally. Still, dangerous waters to start wading unless you are fully armed with the facts as to what they did on what title, what made the final release, what didn't, what they changed and what they did that got changed... yea, I wouldn't just throw out "SBI bad at working on games" statements because some of those games are pretty well liked and then the people who like them will go... well I liked it so F U, you must be wrong, SBI are great. The biggest issue is nobody cares about facts these days.
As a moderate it's nice to see my opinions actually reflected somewhere. The only thing I would point out is that if it's true SBI is intimidating clients to get hired- then they certainly deserve some of the direct backlash. Threatening people and companies to get your way is deplorable.
The whole "you can't be racist against white people" is also something that damages the racism conversation. When it was originally said, it was in the context of systemic racism (essentially, systems designed to oppress non-majority groups) against the ones who control the system. Racism on an individual level is always possible.
my non white ass has been rubbed the wrong way by the statement of white people cant face racism. Racism can become aystemic due to individual choices overtime.
Yeah I agree. We need to establish the difference between systemic and social racism. Social racism can occur with literally any group of people, but system racism requires both social racism with the distinct adage of a power dynamic and associated social hierarchy’s in a culture.
The fact that the definition of racism was changed to reflect this is very telling. The idea that racism requires power and privilege is absolutely ridiculous and just helps promote this same idea that it's ok to demonise people you just decided had the power and privilege because of their skin colour and it's not racist when you do it for this same reason.
Hi Kira, great video. Especially prob the best synopsis of GG I heard in a long time, seems almost everyone forgot that it was indeed not just a harassment campaign. I think you left out a very interesting bit of the story, which is the DEI (US) and ESI (EU) public funds for which these consultant companies provide scores to qualify for funding. In my opinion this is the key to understanding it all Keep it up
I wonder if "GG 2.0" will also employ a squad of ludicrously obsessed Wikipedia editors to maintain a specific narrative against the verifiable evidence for a decade plus. And I wonder if this time they'll pay someone to do that in Chinese as well so that they won't accidentally have the facts and sources visible on a language they happen to not understand.
I'm a white woman and my husband is Indian. I experience a similar level of racism when we go to India that he receives in the Ozarks - it's not a lot but it's there - mostly its just awkward and comes from a place of ignorance, or an assumption of what a brown/white person must like, not based on one's person experiences, but rather what they've heard from others etc. There were people who didn't want to sit by me on the train which was so weird because the train was PACKED. There were some shops that would super-raise the prices when I came in. Having lived in a very white world (the Ozarks) my whole life, it was an interesting learning experience to be the minority. And the people who love you who aren't white get so sad by it, just like when us white people see people we love get hurt by racism. Racism is racism. wow that was long sorry
As a gay man i spent the majority of my life playing games with straight characters. Im sick of it. The rare ocassion where i get a gay one is either pure propaganda or mockery. The gamer community is full of straight men justifying their hatred for people like me, because apparently "im rubbing it on their faces". Big companies are using us to get profit. Im tired of all this nonsense. Anything with the "gamer" label is a toxic cesspool that i have to avoid at all costs.
The most rational and relatable summary of this amusing ridiculousness I've heard (although admittedly I've already reached the point where in most forums I'm actively trying to avoid hearing about it). Thanks mate.
Your general point around the 13:00 mark is accurate. Gamers are happy to play games from different cultures with different ideas, and are generally happy to experience new characters of whatever ethnicity devs want to toss us (so long as the game itself is actually good). That written, people like SBI and the initiatives they push are why Lost Ark, a Korean game, randomly had characters race swapped because, paraphrasing, "a western audience needs a game that represents them, and not Korea," while revising costumes. It's those initiatives that let them feel empowered to scream from their keyboards about how horrible Stellar Blade is because of what the female MC looks like (ignoring that she's based on a real person), and why Sony felt the need to add lens flares to DMC5 a few years back and censor anime games to the point a number of them now skip PS altogether and just release on PC and Switch, and why Koei Tecmo decided to not release DOAX3 in the west. It's why Blizzard felt the need to come out and publicly state "Tracer is a lesbian" and "Soldier 76 is gay" and "Lifeweaver is pansexual" - all of which has nothing to do with the game itself - instead of just letting the fans pair people as wanted in the copious amounts of fanfiction that already existed.
I think it's pretty telling that at the end of this post the mask slipped and you complained about any character being confirmed as non-straight. It's not new or weird for characters to have backstories? Like it doesn't matter to gameplay that Guile from Street Fighter is American but he's been that way for over 20 years now? It's what makes games stories and not just some weird sport involving digital triangles. I'm pretty sure SBI wasn't even involved in any of the things you mentioned, and a lot of them were authentic decisions by the developers themselves. Wouldn't changing that to avoid being seen as 'woke' be the exact thing you're complaining about? Pushing a political agenda on artists?
I don't care one way or another about SBI, and I think a lot of people pushing "all the ills of gaming" on them are being ridiculous. Likewise, I don't care that Tracer and 76 are gay (etc.). The point I'm trying to make with the Overwatch example is that the game launched and none of the characters were sexual anything. So, fans did their own thing (Phara x Mercy, Widow x Tracer, Reaper x 76 as examples of fanon pairings). Blizzard then retroactively applied sexuality to the characters with no in-game rationale or backstory... they basically just announced "insert character is insert LGBT+ concept", and later added backstory after the fact via comic books or short movies. It isn't "artistic license", it's corporate pandering after the fact because they realized "oh, people really want some of our characters to be LGBT+" (easily seen by the fact these characters don't share these traits in other regions where such beliefs aren't as accepted - it's a marketing tactic). OW released in 2016. Blizzard didn't announce 76 was gay until 2019. Was that really an artistic choice made when they created the character? As to your Street Fighter reference: The reason those characters have specific nationalities is because the developers wanted to make an international fighting game (the game is called SF2: World Warrior) and use stereotypes from those regions in character creation to diversify the roster and appeal to regions where the game might be played. The game was designed with that in mind, and every character at the time and afterwards has been represented by a nationality (and usually some sort of stereotype of that nationality). @@finalcipher457
@@RayearthIX wow so not only did they feel the need to explicitly drop characters' nationalities, but they also made it the core concept of the game? Talk about a woke agenda! The only difference between my Street Fighter example and your Overwatch example is your willingness to assume the worst of the developers
@RayearthIX Why are you arguing with the russian version of chatgpt lol? They intentionally stoke the flames of social issues to sow discord and keep the western world divided
It's why I dislike when Steam or any company hides "unrelated" reviews. Don't include them in the review score? Fine I guess, but I want to know what the company gets up to. And even if I agree with that company, I want others to have the same opportunity to view that knowledge even if they may disagree. Make an "unrelated to game" review section to sort them. Not to mention it's USUALLY also used as a cover to delete or hide huge swaths of legitimate reviews too. They provide the excuse they're just going after unrelated reviews, then they delete a bunch of related ones, but your average redditor-iq type person will take their word for it despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Yea and I support their right to do so. However it pisses me off that they also seek out communities formed around any game SBI has been involved with and go at them constantly.
@@GarrulousHerald Can't agree. If a bunch of idiots have decided to buy a game, boot it up for 10 minutes then review it before refunding to say "SBI included" I want a button to be able to make all those reviews disappear and I don't want their... "opinion" to be included in the user score because I just want to know what the game is actually like.
@@JohnnyMaverikand if SBI is included it probably sucks for a lot of people. Hence why we want it included in reviews.... This is like saying you don't want negative reviews about bad graphics. Just because you don't mind something, doesn't mean it doesn't have a right to be included in reviews. That's dumb as hell.
Amen, Kira. Thank you for your honesty. Good game = Good. / Bad game = Bad. A good character = Good. / A bad character = Bad. Doesn't need to be so complicated. Cheers and keep up the great work. 🍵
Just want to say thank you Kira for making a well reasoned and thoroughly researched video on this subject. My RU-vid has been flooded with brain-rotting, content farming bs and this was video was highly refreshing and a salve for my tortured brain.
first of all FANTASTIC breakdown of the wider issue, but I don't see it as limited to just gaming. In recent times the world has become more divided, politics only exists in the extreme, there is no "fight for the middle" like in previous times, Us vs them narrative when it comes to world views, everything just exists in the extreme The second you express an opinion one way or the other, even if it is just slightly over the line thats it, you automatically subscribe and agree with everyone on the most extreme side of that line and are automatically the enemy of the other side... And thats just not realistic or accurate, everyone exists on a spectrum no matter what the issue, and it almost always falls within a bell curve, the vast majority are in the middle, but you can't express that you are in the middle, because there is no room for nuance in any situation.
I listen to a lot of audio dramas. There's been a really noticeable shift in the last few years versus 20th century/early noughties. It's like writers have forgotten they're supposed to entertain us. Apparently they have decided they are in the education industry. For example, I frequently encounter dramas that contain a "non-b!nary" character whose entire inclusion is so said character can lecture the protagonist on pronouns and the "correct" way to address non-by-nar-eee people. The character is then never heard from again. (Thanks youtube for forcing me to change spelling of certain words so comment isn't automatically deleted)
None of this would have been a thing if it weren't for devs and journalists, industry professionals who should (hypothetically) know better than to spread hate online, constantly spewing hateful garbage and engaging with the Internet Hate Machine, only to play the victim when they receive any negative attention in return. The kinds of people that do this make the gaming industry a worse place, and the industry would be better off without them. Also, another issue that many people have with companies like SBI is that they aren't a company that is hired to make games *better*, but to ensure that games tick specific boxes that investors are looking at. Companies hiring SBI aren't doing so because they care so much about their game, their customers, or even marginalized groups, but because they know investors are more willing to give money to projects that at least LOOK progressive. It's a potential sign that a game was made for investors first, and customers second. It's equivalent to a studio that has worked exclusively on single player games coming out with a live service game; you KNOW it wasn't done because the devs cared about quality, and it immediately casts doubt on the entire project.
Game journalists have to create a new boogyman if they want to stay in business. Lets not forget sbi is funded by blackrock, whose ceo openly and feely admitted he wants to force behaviroal changea in ppl through controllsd investments.
Anita Sarkeesian’s video on the game HITMAN is all that you need to understand how intellectually dishonest these people are. Long live Gamergate and Comicsgate.
Oh, she lied lots of times in her Tropes vs Women series. Usually by omission. She would constantly leave out important information. And lots of journalists defended her.
Man, its awesome to have someone reporting on the actual story and reasons behind things like this instead of focusing only on the pointless internet rage looking to bait a few extra clicks. Thanks for doing actual journalism. Cheers!
