My Take on Diversity in Video Games and Sweet Baby Inc.
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- Äas pĆidĂĄn 28. 03. 2024
- Gotta tell it like it is sometimes...
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According to âDiversity for Social Impactâ, âForced diversity occurs when organizations or institutions mandate the inclusion of individuals from diverse backgrounds based on factors such as gender, race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation, rather than organically fostering an inclusive environment. This approach often results in tokenism, where individuals are included primarily based on their diverse attributes rather than their skills and qualifications. While the intentions behind forced diversity may be well-meaning, its superficial nature can lead to a variety of harmful outcomes.â
An example would be if someone changed Mario's race to be inclusive.
I wonât stand here and say I know everything about Sweet Baby Inc., but I do know that going after Akira Toriyama hours after people found out he passed away is just wrong. The issue comes from Chris Kindred (Narrative Designer from Sweet Baby Inc.); Kindred wrote âToriyama gave us the best and worst black characters in anime in the same series, it took range to do that.â
I just want to play good games
After watching the video and reading the comments:
Bro, who tf cares? Make good games. Dont be weird. Thats all everyone wants.
Apparently ppl want majority white characters and for none white ppl to go back to being token characters only
make good games. thats it, weird is good but when the game sucks(95% of games on the market) we dont like that.
@@meatbasedvegan4859 spider-man 2 was one of the best games of last year by several metrics and it was the sweet baby conspiracy theorists biggest issue and alan wake 2 which was also another game of the year contender last year so let's not play like this is about good games cause you complained about arguably great games
@@ctquestthose games fall into the small 5% category (you named 2 AAA games lol). so many other games are complete shite
Honestly, I have never thought about the main characters race or color. I've been playing games for over 25 years it's just not something that I care about. I don't need them to be Puerto Rican like me and look like me.
So what does that mean? The characters should all be white?
@@TheRenegadeStarr to summarize, I simply don't care. Really never gave it a thought when I play games
@@BroncosSixers1230 but that wasnât the question, what are you use to seeing, and is that usually always white? Iâm seeing ppl say â I never gave it a second thoughtâ because the status quo has always been one thing. White. Again what are you use to seeing if you donât usually notice?
@TheRenegadeStarr I just play the games and have fun. Whoever the main character is , I just see that character for who the creators made them to be. I'm not sure how else to explain it other than that. Not sure if my background of not really having many white people around me growing up or going to school changes anything. Growing up we looked at each other's race and skin color and always playfully had fun with all that among friends, but when it comes to games just never really care how characters look
@@TheRenegadeStarr I think gender was more notable to me as a gamer , than skin color or race
Youâre bang on the nail with your points
I will say, the Cynthia Weaver boss fight made me break my controller and tv in that game. (Alan Wake 2) đ
I would say about Japanese developers, often their characters are 1-dimensional or based on characters from 1980s American films. The silent protagonists are protected from this by their nature which is why Nintendo's silent protagonists have much more depth than more fleshed out characters in Japanese gaming.
Always appreciate you being a voice of reason in this space â€
What trying to sađą Zach is you have a good point
"Just be kind to people". Except y'see, the "diverse and inclusive" crowd are not kind to people.
Really? Just look at the comments of this video to see how the anti woke anti diversity/inclusion crowd is. They are far from kind. Enjoy your feelings.
Someone needs to show him all those tweets and clips that are going around on Twitter
â@@rolltideroll8458not just Twitter but everywhere
Aka âall the none white ppl arenât niceâ
Aka - âall the none white ppl arenât kindâ
I'm surprised, were most people under the illusion that Zack was a conservative?
Listen, I'm a pretty hard right conservative. I still like Zack, but I expected him to entirely support the liberal position on this. I didn't expect any different. I completely disagree with Zack, but these are his opinions. Is what it is.
Itâs his lack of understanding of why thereâs backlash thatâs pissing people off. He doesnât even a cursory understanding of the issue here. He can have his opinion, but when heâs wronging assuming people who are critics of SBI are âracistsâ & himself admits he hasnât really done any research on it⊠It becomes less of an opinion & becomes a flat out lie on what people have contention with.
@@Skleet That's fair. Btw, I didn't care for his condescending "sit down with a therapist" remark. He points out a tweet from a gaming company over Alan Wake saying "it's not true" then acting like that's substantial proof. That's like accusing a professional bodybuilder with a 300lb frame and 10% body fat of being on steroids, and he says, "well that's just not true." Lmao! It's like, what do you expect them to say? "Yeah, damn. You caught us." đ
@@Alstanus Exactly. Itâs wild how brazen he was with this video. If you donât know, you donât know. We understand. Not everyone knows everything.
I knew Ghost was left I just expected him not to be so blatantly insensitive and paint a whole movement as bigoted that's why I unsubscribed
â@ThePontiffofPonWolf same
As gamets all we want are fun games thats it we don't care if the main character is purple as long as the game is fun.tteat others how you wish to be treated.
Who is sweet baby ink? I dunno any of it
I have seen some videos from SB that are giving some huge red flags. Nonetheless, the only ones really able to 'force' something are the board of directors and probably shareholders.
Personally I think it is awesome if a game is inclusive. I like to play RPG's, and I notice it is easier for me to get in character when I can relate to the protagonist. Wasn't the whole joke that Larian posted regarding that most custom characters in BG3 were just generic white males, despite having options like horns and tails? Guess what: the majority of gamers are white males, so the industry will cater to that. But it is also good to have games that take the broader audience in mind, and have different skin colours/sexualities/genders/etc. This should be normal, in my opinion. If a developer would need to be like 'look at us, we included a black lesbian trans woman who is hearing impaired. Did we already mention that she is POC, LGBTQ and disabled, so she ticks all the boxes? Yeah she's just there for brownie points actually' than we are missing the point too. Inclusity should be normal, having to fulfill a checklist not. But ultimately, it is up to the developers of a game to decide what story they want to tell and the world it is in. Whether that is all-inclusive or 'white male in world of scandily clad big-boobed women' should all be valid. Not all games are my cup of tea or developed with me in mind, and that is fine.
TLDR: I think it is awesome if games are inclusive and represent the diversity of the world.
I think the only problem I have is that they donât properly represent races. I would love to play a really good character that deep dives in another culture but alas they always just ride the tropes and stereotypes.
Based Switchforce take. đ„
If someone where to change Mario into a "non-binary" black woman, I'd be pissed. If someone has a great idea for a character for a game, and "they" are black, I would have no problem with it what-so-ever! That's all I'm saying.
I would be pissed too
If itâs a good character and it was something Nintendo wanted then who cares
Just using that as an excuse to be racist,sexist,homophobic etc
@@madnessarcade7447 I hate when people say that. They assume your race and gender if you donât like something. Also I have been called homophobic for disliking a certain dress because it was on a guy. That dress was ugly. Also clothes arenât tied to sexuality
There hasnât been any major character changes to already established characters in video games just new characters that are more diverse.
@@madnessarcade7447You're being dismissive, and let's be real, if a studio made a Black Panther video game with a white character instead, you'd absolutely lose your mind.
Another frustrating note you don't address is the blatant disregard of the original artist when localization teams "translate" for the Western markets. This is happening heavily to anime, games, and manga.
Localization teams flaunting the changes they make as improving the source materials. They inject their own political and social beliefs into the materials. Changing characters completely, changing the script and the plot entirely. Irks me to no end. This is why I have imported titles and systems since the 90s.
Localization teams have done these changes since I can remember. Some things do not translate, I know, but localization teams have gone too far as of late (past ten years).
Due to them doing so and complaints companies have received, some companies are starting to use AI to translate their scripts and using in-house localization. Western Localization Teams are losing their minds over it. The sad thing is, who is training the AI to do the translation and localization? Look at Google Gemini for an example. Sigh....
Sounds like all the complainers made things worse.đ€
So you only want to play as people that look like you and it bothers you to see anything different yes or no ?
@@blueprint570 not me. The more variety the better I say.
The âforced diversityâ argument makes me think of people who started complaining about Black cinema. Where Blacks were underrepresented and limited largely to stereotypes in cinema. And when Black people started saying they werenât happy with the representation of their race or community, they were told basically âif you donât like it, make what you want to see.â And then as Black creators started making more genuine movies about their communities and common hopes, dreams, anxieties, fears, etc of Black people, the people who made the âif you donât like it, make what you want to seeâ argument shifted to âNOT LIKE THAT! Whereâs the white people and why are none of the ones that do exist in the film the hero?â
This definitely isn't a strawman.
What you typed never happened
youre completely right and i hope this video purges your channel of the subscribers who are mad at this
You should probably focus on switch 2 stuff. Rumors
And saying the other has devolved is just another inflammatory.
Never forget, pander-man 2 won zero awards.
you mean to tell me all those LGBT_=:...
@@AidenR23it was only one side mission đ but okay letâs only help straight people in our side missions. So childish
Thatâs because it came out later in the year and didnât have time to get enough traction before he awards
never forget you gets no B***ches
your on the list...
Wrong
I think itâs disingenuous to start out saying most of this discourse is people being upset their main characters arenât white men and they are afraid of diversity. I think most people are upset at so many characters being introduced and developers exclaiming that these characters are so unique and great simply because they are a different gender or race and then they are the hollowest written character in the game. There are plenty of great well written diverse characters in games but many of them are not that. And those kind of characters clearly feel forced as if to fit a âdiversityâ quota. Spiderman specifically had that one mission where you had to play as a deaf girl. And while Iâm sure it was a unique mission where you got to somewhat understand someone elseâs lived experience itâs not something most people think about or want in their superhero video game. And while not really offensive it was definitely at least to me boring and unneeded. I think you can make an argument that that was an example of forced diversity. And while there are so many good developers out there there has been an alarmingly large string of devs recently being shown to be publicly racist towards white men which isnât cool. And also seems to stoke the flames of people who already have a notion that the gaming industry is just infested with anti white hatred. I donât think it is but it adds to the discourse. I think you make some decent points in the video but that you also donât fully understand what it is people are mad about and that itâs just people hating the idea of playing as anything other than white dudes. While like you said Iâm sure there are bad apples out there that say and believe that itâs not the majority of
Finally a sound argument. He talks about how weâre misrepresenting what companies are doing but heâs actually misrepresenting what people mean about forced diversity
He's not interested in what they're saying, only in what he thinks they're saying.
So forced means added in after the story is written. If you have amazing writer, who knows who to write a fantastic story then you should enjoy the game as intended.
I think the focus of the conversation is misguided. The outrage is not diversity, what people donât like is the over focus on diversity to fit an agenda, rather than focusing in gameplay and good stories. The later should be the upmost focus in a product for consumers. People donât play games for diversity, they play games because theyâre good. Iâm Asian and Iâve never in my life cared to have an Asian as the character I control, or white or anything. But to the public it seems that the companies donât care about the product anymore, rather the marketing is diversity and inclusivity. At least thatâs how I see it.
the CEO of sweetbaby literally is on video at games developers conference telling the audience to scare the marketing teams of these video games studios into pressuring the studios to hire companies like sweetbaby, he clearly didn't do research about this subject and just jumped into it with a CNN level of understanding, the reason people hate sweetbaby is because of the nepotism & mafia style blackmail they are trying to pull on the gaming industry much like anita tried many years ago which has an observable effect of lowering the quality of every game they touch
But in retrospect thatâs saying that games with good story is only white straight males? Very false I donât play games just to see a white male story that already dominates the content community but I digress
@@newagehero9605if most writers are white, and only very few writers get to be great, doesn't logic follow most great writers would come from the largest group? unless you want to say that out of 100k white writers there's 100 great writers and out of 10k black writers there's 100 great writers, according to your logic, a black writer is on average ten times better than a white writer? highly doubt it
Mail Time. I didnât like how the characters look. Sometimes not playing a game based on what the characters look like isnât always bad.
people really like to throw the term woke all over the place without actually knowing where it stems from or how long itâs been around. really liked this super real long term
video man, respect
What is woke?
I support you on this, Honestly people just gotta learn to not say anything and let it go.
I canât support bigots and bullies like sweet baby inc. but I understand how tiring it can all be and most of us just want to enjoy our games.
Sweet baby inc might not ruin a game, but they might damage it and I wouldnât want those hateful people anyway near a game book or movie.
Apparently you did not hear the comments of Of sweet baby inks CEO Which started all this May be they should not say Publicly, if a programmer does not include something in their game take them out to lunch and Torment them until they do! make them uncomfortable! If you don't want backlash, don't don't say things that are going to get backlash. No agree, some of the games you mentioned.Probably not forced anything and people who are saying it just need Put their pitchforks down. But sweet baby ink deserves all the criticism they are getting right now.
It is forced diversity tho. If the developer wants a character to look a certain way then it should be so not because a company tells them they should.
How else do you think characters are made to begin with? You know the abundance of strong white males out there in games, do you not think the developer discussed the idea to many people to MAKE said character male, white and strong, and wouldn't want it any other way? But oh no! When a developer does it to a character of color, a women ect, and pushes for the character to be so, it's suddenly bad? Like can we not ever have characters or colors or women pushed as a idea in games? It's oh so bad to think that remotely? Because then said producers will get called out just for thinking "Oh hey, maybe the lead character should be a girl?" -- "Oh what?!? Absurd!!! NO NO NO! Has to be a male, a leader, strong and willful!" -- "But why can't a girl also be all of that? It's different and sounds unique and can tell a story differently than an expect strong male lead that we see mostly in things compared to female leads?" --- "What!?!? You're trying to force your stuff on me, wah wah wah!!!", Wow... Okay so perfectly acceptable for a man in games, a man as the first thought, man who isn't colored as the lead, but ANY ideas of something different and creative suddenly the other side gets snowflake about and cry wolf to no avail....
Not everything is sweet baby Inc but I digress
As a black man, I can personally say I hate forced diversity. It places importance on a persons skin color vs. Focusing on gameplay and story. & With today's high stakes, gaming landscape, developers hardly have enough time to actually finish games. let alone focus on scoring bonus political/ Twitter points. By the way, we all loved Tomb Rider, The X-men,Perfect Dark & Xena warriror princess. People act like those properties, that championed women weren't blockbusters while also making millions & that they succeeded by putting the story/gameplay first. Everyone, please be awesome 2 each other!
Disregard Sweet Baby inc. I'm disabled and seeing disabled charactersmeans a lot to me. I'm sure I'm not the only person of an under represented demographic that really gets a lot out of seeing people like me in the media I love. Especially when there are so few of us in media, and every example is a stupid stereotypes like the blind guy that sees the future or can actually see when it's raining.
The only Uncle Sweet Baby Billy Bubba 0:01 Rays I care about is in my barbecue sauce. Sweet Chipotle all the way baby.
Good for you, appreciate this vid
Itâs beautiful to show our culture in games. To show how different we are. I love it when we see diversity in games â€ïž and we need to teach people that itâs ok to be different. We still have that problem in the world.
"When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression."
Or racism is just wrong no matter who engages in it.
Wokists cannot be reasoned with.
@@TheDudeSama wokists are superior, though. Are you still trying to cook in a frying pan like a buffoon?
Zack. Talk to YoungRippa59 on this topic. Heâs educated you on a lot. Heâs also black. It would shatter the blanket âracistâ label youâve thrust upon people heavily criticizing Sweet Baby Ink. Cheers dude.
Zach will just label him a white supremacist and call it a day.
None of it is your business, and anyone can be racist.
@@Earthling247 Again, the left has told ME & everyone else that black people cannot be racist. Only prejudice. It is my business when heâs blatantly calling people who are critical of SBI âracist.â As if people ONLY want to play as white characters in video games, acting like thatâs a legitimate argument being brought up. He doesnât know what heâs talking about & would rather stay in his bubble of âpositivityâ out of pure ignorance. There are actual arguments being made & videos like this only further the divide. Again, nobody gives a shit about the race of the characters they play. What weâre asking for is create new characters for POC people. Hijacking a classically wired & turning them black isnât diversity. Itâs the soft bigotry of low expectations. They donât think black characters will get support, so weâll do a racial reskin on this character, hope they buy the con & not do anything substantial when creating new stories in the cultural of underrepresented communities. Ariel goes right back to being white. She wonât stay black. She shouldâve never been changed racially for one time to begin with. By taking African folklore stories, casting a black lead to play the black character & advertising it showcases that Disney isnât afraid to take a chance on new properties. This can be applied to video games as well.
@@Skleet so considering you use the term âthe leftâ you are showing everyone all they need to know. Unless someone works for the game producing companies or the consultants they hire, itâs none of their business. Buy it, donât buy it, no one is concerned how it makes you feel.
@@Earthling247 Incredible that you didnât answer any of my stated issues & seemingly pointed to the term âthe leftâ as a gotcha on me or something. Until you can address anything that Iâve stated, you & your ilk can allow natural selection to take its course.
I respect you putting your point of view out there but You need to do a little bit more research it seems your missing apart of the story where it didn't start with the gamers
I donât need characters to look like me because Iâm not a self absorbed narcissist.
Then donât and be quiet about others wanting characters they can personally relate to in more than one way.
âLike wanting a character to be white because you're white? Like that?
"Oh no, not like that. Any other color of person can want that. But not whites. Because I'm racis--"
Aka youâre fine with logging in and it always being a white character as the lead. Thatâs the default gaming experience
@@travishalliwell9452 AKA I couldnât care less because Iâm not obsessed with myself or race
@travishalliwell9452 What happened to what the character looks like not mattering?
17:03 hope u could speak on Palestine then
I may disagree with you with everything you said, but I have nothing but respect for you man.
k I actually watched the whole video. snaps snaps. you're a good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I appreciate your perspective, but I believe there are other things to consider. My enjoyment of a game is based on its quality, and things like race or identity aren't factors for me. However, when developers or company representatives make offensive comments or express disdain towards gamers, it becomes a matter of principle for me. I choose not to support behavior that perpetuates discrimination or hate. And I will not support companies like Sweet Baby
There are many great games with quality and wonderful stories that have a diversity in them. However some people do take it kind of far because once they see one single character is non white they absolutely go bonkers and complain that the game has forced diversity even if the game is really good.
Read this switchforce your take is all one-sided I agree race shouldn't matter anything but you are not taking into account the stuff coming out about all these dei companies they are actually the racists you definitely seem to be in these companies pockets I don't care about people's races in videogames never have don't pigeon hole all of us that don't agree with these dei companies cause I've been gaming since the 80's never had or have had problem with diversity in gaming but I don't agree with these dei companies or the industry with "diversity" just make good games without injecting politics that's all people really want not about race, and sweet baby tried to cancel a gamer for making a sweet baby inc detected list that's how this "gamer gate 2" got started not for the reason you stated in your video please do full investigation before you make a video and calling people on one side of the argument basically intolerant you have no idea what your talking about especially seeing as you've only looked into one side of the story! But really it kinda seems like you purposely are being biased to one side for what reason I'm not sure but you definitely are. Thanks for making this video though your getting a unsubsidized from me.
@@J3D1xKN1GHT there are lots of right wing/conservatives âgamingâ CZcamsrs that are literally only covering one side of this issue. A side that is against diversity or anything âwokeâ itâs all one sided when they cover it. But they seem to be getting a pass since they validate the feelings of their audience
@@JackThomas-of3kd no matter what other youtuber is doing shouldn't matter he should tell both sides of the story and not basically call everyone on one side of the argument intolerant because I'm on the other side and I could care less about diversity just make a good game, but sweetbaby and all these companies like them have been shown to be the actual racists I'm against racism in all it's forms I'm not political I'm politically neutral so I don't want any politics in my videogames the problem with entertainment industry nowadays is they are all about putting politics into everything I don't want left or right politics in anything just make a good game movie etc with a good story. That's it. But back to switchforce he shouldn't have pigeon holed everyone as intolerant that are on the other side of the argument we aren't and he's painting a false narrative by only telling one side of the story he should report on both sides then say why he though agrees with the other side and why. He lost my respect by only telling one side and basically calling everyone racist intolerant people.
@@J3D1xKN1GHT okay.. but other CZcamsrs who are against diversity or anything woke have literally covered one side of this. But they are getting a pass, that was my original point. They are getting a pass for validating their conservative audienceâs feelings. But Zach ainât getting a pass. Itâs not consistent.
He did not call everyone racist. This is group think and a victimization complex. If you really looked you could see the bigger picture. There are actual people mixed into this who are just upset that some characters in media are not white and I wonât pretend those people donât exist. There really isnât that much of a difference when it comes to calling everyone racist because they donât agree on a certain issue and people complaining about âforced diversityâ by assuming some people of color are not qualified for a role.
Tell me you don't understand the argument without telling me you don't understand the argument
Congratulations, youâve caused me to seek out other Video Game journalists on CZcams to seek out more information on this. RGT 85 has a video from 2 weeks ago with a much better take than Zach here on this topic. For those who feel Zach missed the mark here.
this is a topic where gamers want games to be good and the games where the studios have the DEI and ESG in them say if you like it dont buy it the community said ok they didnt and the DEI ESG people attacked them and wined and B word at them also gamer hate censored ship of any kind of big and or small also changes of old games from 2 to 10 years old and the only changes are censorship and model changes and this is stated mult times gamer dont care about Diversity they will play any game with any character as long as the game is good plus gamers like hot female characters and their less and less of them in DEI ESG games
Forced diversity is when a cast of characters is diverse not out of organic creative freedom but out of a socially imposed perceived responsibility for equity in ethnic representation within any given narrative.
In other words, when they put minorities in games not out of wanting to do it for the sake of it, but out of having to fill check marks to pander to a small vocal politically correct crowd. The pandering is often very blatant and it gets in the way of the storytelling, nothing takes me out of a story more than a character setting everything aside for a second to shit talk "the white man" when it makes no sense to do so in the context of the story.
Diversity is not inclusion, and inclusion does not necessarily require diversity. There are no Latino main or support characters in Dragon Ball Z, there are literally 0, yet it's the most widely loved Anime series in Latin America, nothing within DBZ makes it unappealing to Latinos despite it having no Latinos in it. How many people in Latin America do you think even know of Crunchyroll's Onyx Equinox, a show made entirely to appeal to Latinos where every single character is Latino? I'd be surprised if you found even 1.
There are legitimate complaints about SBI. You can glean a lot about a commentator by their point of attack.
ESG is not a bad thing in and of itself, and when people attack that concept as a whole, they're very much telling on themselves.
However, SBI's behavior specifically is atrocious, it's very well documented, and they should be called out for it.
Telling developers to threaten their employers with cultural backlash if they refuse SBI's services, trying to take down Kabrutus' Steam curation page AND HIS PERSONAL ACCOUNT just for making it easier for people to vote with their dollar, going after RGT just for covering the matter, etc...
They are experiencing a lot of backlash that is entirely due to the consequences of their own actions. That just gets diminished because it's being painted as an attack on ESG altogether, no thanks to bad actors - the kinds of people who unironically use the word "woke" - who are piggybacking on this whole mess to do exactly that.
SBI's mission isn't the problem, it's their methods, and that's worth holding them accountable for.
ESG is bad
@@BobNoobin By definition, it's really just making games more welcoming and reflective of broader society, which is not a bad thing at all, generally speaking, depending on the spirit it is done in and the methods employed to make it happen.
A lot of things being done IN THE NAME of ESG, on the other hand (including, but by no means limited to, things mentioned in my original comment), are a huge problem. That's what needs to be focused on.
I have as much of a problem with people who act like a black, female, and/or LGBT protagonist is a personal affront, as I do with people who are so convinced that being a proponent of ESG means that their shit doesn't stink that they feel justified in resorting to blackmail and extortion to put that protagonist there, or trying to get Steam curators shut down for trying to better inform consumers' ability to vote with their dollar.
I wholeheartedly resent both sides in this.
@@littleakibagames ESG is forced company and people social credit scores, it's a cartel, it's bad.
ESG is horrible. Evil.
@@randizzleswizzle8810 I love the way you guys back up your positions around here, god damn. Brilliant.
You said it Zach! You are a great man! And if I had the opportunity to be friends with you & hang out with you outside your videos! Youâd know! Iâm not like many others that want to be friends or meet people famous. I may not be famous myself! But I have met people who are. If I were to want to be in touch with them & they werenât sure they wanted to trust that about me! Iâd be understanding. I respect that about anyone. I only say bad things about people who are a bad influence to others. You did talk about people being disrespectful! At least you donât live in the US State of Oregon. There are more than plenty of those people there. And they donât care about the good or bad. I know where this is all going. Because I use to be just as bad. But thankfully! I learned from that before it got any worse. People are people. And they must be treated equal. I do that as much as I possibly can. Thanks for that video Zach! Glad to see you care about good people as well as I do.
I respect your point,
The issue isnât force diversity. The issue is that Sweet Baby preaches equality & diversity and it was found on record that they harassed,bullied by company leadership, and with some cases employees saying racial slurs.
Yet, when asked about the situation they play the victim card.
When it all started with them bullying a person on Steam.
What you describe is certainly wrong. But there's a lot more to this conversation than just that. This has become a debate about diversity in games. Maybe for you this is the core issue and that's fine, but I'm seeing comments in the thousands attacking developers for having the audacity to include gender, racial, sexual minorities in their games.
@@AstralFrost Originally it was the head of SBI, Chris Kindred, trying to cancel an individual and his steam account for making a list of games SBI worked on. They got drunk on their own perceived power.
@@AstralFrost the situation may have evolved into gamers attacking developers for adding in diversity into the games. But it all started with SBI causing the problem
In my opinion, gamers may feel like that developers who made those changes were bullied, threaten, or harass by SBI. Then cave into those demands and the game was effected in some way or form.
There will be some that will come out and have a âanti wokeâ response, thatâs expected.
@@dr.peguin4557 I hear you. I just think the culture war aspect has been very depressing. I totally agree that SBI has acted badly. I should hope that we believe in free speech and not shutting others down, harassing, bullying and all of that.
Dude...... You have no idea what you're talking about. Have you not seen the interview with sweet baby inc?
@bigcasey1009 I know he's a leftist and he's delusional and is obviously supporting a company who dox's people for not agreeing with there beliefs or agendas
How does he not have any idea of what he's talking about? Have you not seen the desperate outrage/cry of those complaining about anything of color or a women in their games? And then goes off to make it into a big deal, when for YEARS and beginning of games, there's always been diversity in games you've been playing, loved and grew up with, with the many intent from developers to be it as so, but of course when one speaks up about it, it gets bashed on to no avail... right.. because as if your favorite game you're playing has nothing but white males (no colored people and no females) in it, because one little ounce of color the people who you try to defend will lose their minds about it, one little hint of a female being a lead character or having a prominent role you lot will lose it...
It's never about "being woke", that's just a facade the Right-wings like to use to get people like you to fall for it. It's all just the freedom of choices, the creativity of the mind, storytelling ect. Do your types really want to restrict every little thing and be a third world country like North Korea or China with their restriction rules, and being so single minded from all other cultures of the world and of all people of color of the world, no exploration and no culture learning, because it's oh so bad to learn about culture and people of different races being strong and leaders?... Yeah go ahead and continue to live so single minded, self centered, and in your little bubble world, it ain't going to work and the more your kinds cry about it, the worse it continues to look on you
Heâs not had conversations with people like RGT85 or YoungRippa59 as to why the outrage against Sweet Baby Ink exists. He comes out as so ignorant, grouping everyone together who criticizes Sweet Baby Ink as if theyâre racist. Jesus Christ man. YoungRippa59 is black too. Iâd love for Zack to talk to him asap.
Oh...cry some more snowflake!
The employees there seem to be bigots and bullies. Encouraging harassment and trying to cancel someone for posting a list of games they had some influence and not recommending them.
The CEO in a presentation advising her audience to bribe and threaten the marketing team if developers donât want to put their suggestions in a game. Likening a post from a Kotaku writer which said you canât be racist to white people. The day after the death of legendary dragon ball artist Akira Toriyama, writing a disparaging comment for his portrayal of black peoples even though he is loved by all races.
They are hateful people.
These people are responsible for the in lore text in Kill the Suicide Squad were Lex Luther praises the Amazons and criticises the patriarchy. They are responsible for the a lot of the dialogue and narrative choices in that game which received a lot of criticism for the endings of loved characters in the justice league, except Wonder Woman who seemed to be only one portrayed alright.
They were responsible for the change in Sagaâs character in Alan Wake 2 where she suddenly says a random racist dialogue against white people.
They may not ruin a game, but they can damage it. And for a company that claims to be sensitivity writers, I wouldnât want them anywhere near a game, movie or book.
Itâs telling that none of the big publishers they have worked with have come to defend them yet, despite being asked to.
Zack is way off base here. This company and their ilk shouldnât exist.
I think the actual issue is that it's changes to characters and story from consultant firms populated by activists (who clearly aren't the kind benevolent empathetic people you seem to assume they are) in order to obtain higher E.S.G. scores.
The vast majority of people have zero problem with representation in games. The problem they have is changing characters and story to fit activists sensibility by a Sweet Baby Inc employee who said "had a nightmare that I was a white male gamer" "pay me to shoot down your white male lead game ideas" "I usually get grossed out when straight white rich people kiss but even I think these two are pretty cute". - I assume that's not along the lines of kindness and empathy that you said you wished there was more of out there?
Most people wouldn't of known about them in the first place if Sweet Baby Inc.âs Chris Kindred hadn't tried to get Kabrutis's (spelling?) steam account deleted and his group (which also no doubt otherwise would have remained obscure) shut down for daring to make a list of games they'd consulted on....which were publicly available on their own website in the first place.
I'm not a white guy myself, and I don't know exactly what you've seen on Twitter (plenty of jerk on there), but I know you think you're being kind and empathetic. I'd propose to you that a person can be too empathetic towards people.
Normally on videos I donât agree but I agree for this
A lot of people just coming up with cover up reasons on why they only want white straight characters in Their games. Like YALL do know other kind of people exist right? Idk itâs so crazy to me.
If you live in a Western nation I suggest moving to a more "diverse" country, it's a small suggestion.
Itâs amazing the mental gymnastics they do to basically say âget these blackies out of my game.â Most gamers never fail to disappoint me
â@@hatguyfan22 It's the opposite, why do you want to play games set in specific historic or geographical areas and pretend they are "diverse" and racially replace the native people those stories originate from and disrespect others. It's disturbing. What do you and others have against gingers?
@@snapplegu6100 okay but we donât always want to see white and weâre talking about games that are culturally correct đ again excuses for blatant racism and anti lgbtq+
Dude I respect you even more , you should make more videos like this better then clickbaitâs
agree 100%
Good luck with this.
Thank you. I really appreciate you sharing your views on this topic, especially with how toxic the gaming community can be at times. I donât engage normally but I do watch your channel daily so knowing that you feel this way made me feel safe and comfortable in your space as an under represented gamer. So just wanted to support!!
Not to change the subject, anyone know what happened to Gabe from this channel?
I believe he passed away last year.
@@Skleet Does anyone know how he passed? Info is extremely vague.
@@Alexvander10 My apologies. Iâll link a video asap. I do believe I know who youâre referencing though.
@@Alexvander10 Zach wanted to keep it more private I think, donât go digging
Not every video game company will diverse characters in associated with sweet baby Inc đ
Hey, i love your Videos and i tried very hard to follow it to the end but i failed. First of all. I dont think that we have a huge problem with forced diversity in gaming. It is as you describe it. We have games like gta and cyberpunk with natural diversity because the game is depicting a diverse reality and everything feels right. We have Samurai games which show asian looking guys and we have the witcher which Shows an eastern european medieval society using elves and dwarves to talk about racism way that reflects reality and fits the world of the game. We have a lack of games which tell stories about poc and as you said. I am looking forward tonplay tchia on my switch not because of any race thing But because of the gameplay. BUT saying there is no such thing as forced diversity cannot be more false. Having female poc viking leaders, female looking tolkien dwarves and so on IS forced in two ways at least. It contratictes reality and source material / history. I am an political organized leftie. I am fighting against racism sexism homophobia and so on but saying that everybody who is not "colourblind" is a racist, is a self fulfulling prophecy. Creatives have always been more progressive then most consumers but this diversity doesnt help anyone. Game development is dependant on external money and the biggest investment companies which own large percentiges of the worlds money decide their investments based on a score which rates diversity and visibility of minoritys in a companies products and workforce. If a companie is dependant on this money they will include a few minoritys not because they want But because they need the money and they will not tell it anyone in a press release. Most companies could not care less about minoritys but they care about money.
I am not an english native speaker so try to understand my argument and dont focus on wording
Sweet baby and others have had legit said racist things, look it up there are videos. Also itâs not the diversity that the problem itâs the ugly women and bad stories where the men are the problems and have to apologize every second and be second to the women. We donât like that. I do agree sometimes itâs overblown because you know the internet and all but there are some legit cases.
Also something that rubs a lot of people the wrong way is changing an establish character in some way they shouldnât be. Also side note on the opposite side, even with pretty women in games, donât make them good, Iâm not into stellar blades gameplay or world at all despite liking the character model lol
@@davidsmith8736 Heâs very isolated opinion wise. He doesnât actually have conversations with people like RGT85 or YoungRippa59 as to WHY thereâs distaste towards what Sweet Baby Ink is doing. Thereâs a HUGE disconnect on what SBI SAYS theyâre doing & what theyâre actually doing. A little amount of research wouldâve destroyed some of the arguments made in this video. Zack is very much on the hyper âpositivityâ train, refusing to acknowledge the blatant negative stuff SBI is doing. So long as he can blanket call anyone criticizing SBI âracistâ & heâll be good. I donât dislike Zack, but when youâre not even educated on the arguments those who disagree with your perspective are saying, Iâd rather he not have said anything at all because his audience isnât foaming at the mouth for his viewpoints. This is of his of volition.
@@Skleet agree. Donât think heâs a bad guy for this prospective, that a lot of people have especially if you havenât seen certain things. I will still watch him he makes great switch videos and is positive which I like. Just wish he would have either done more research or not said anything at all.
@@davidsmith8736 Exactly. Agree. Iâm still watching him. Iâm a fan & look forward to more videos. Remember him from the Ghost Robo days lmfao.
Forced diversity is the little girl in God of War Ragnarok. Thatâs just an example. Youâre fooling yourself bro. Open your eyes and stop appealing to the masses for clicks. I want great games but I aint blind.
I applaud you for coming out and giving your opinion, dude, but there are a few things you got wrong. Now, to be fair, you had some really GOOD points, too.
But you totally missed that Sweet Baby STARTED this by ATTACKING that Steam Group. It's OBVIOUS that you're based TOWARDS Sweet Baby, but seem to wag your finger at others for doing the SAME in the OPPOSITE direction. Now you make many good points at how it should be about the game, though.
Now, towards the end, you talk about OTHER ppl using their large platforms to push their "brainwashed opinions".... But can't this WHOLE VIDEO be said to be doing THE. SAME. THING.
I congratulate you for your opinions and bravery on the matter; but you need a long, hard look in the mirror to see you are being almost the SAME as what you preach against.
God bless you for using your free speech, dude!
That would require he do thorough research & itâs clear he didnât do that nor wanted to take out the time to do so. His take isnât âbraveâ or anything. Itâs very centrist & honestly uneducated on the reasons as to why thereâs a controversy in the first place. Should he continue to make videos like these, I honestly hope he takes the time to understand those he may be at odds with. Labeling them across the board as racist is a wild take.
@Skleet Amen, dude! Well said.
@@TheDarkComicNerd Just want him to improve & think next time because I like his content.
@Skleet I TOTALLY agree! Which is why I wanted to say a few positive things, too. I don't want to give off the vibe that we are doing more than just offering a different perspective. I feel for the dude.
@@TheDarkComicNerd Agree totally.
I always knew Zack was a real one
This why you're the đ. Well-reasoned and well-explained stance.
Prepare for a lot of backlash for your normal take. People love to overreact on the smallest things
Normal take, don't make me laugh, he is a supporting indoctrination and delusions and nobody wants gender politics in their video games đ
Iâm so glad you took the time to talk about this. Thank you for being so kind
Videogames are not "meant" to be representations of reality. The are fantastical by definition. So of course it couldn't possibly matter if "diversity" or ANY other ideal is represented in videogames. Again, fantasy. I don't care if a game shows diversity or not. Does it suit the story, setting, and characters of the creators to have diversity? If so, great, do that. Or don't, if it isn't how you wrote your story. I don't blame Dark Souls for having a cruel, brutal world. I like it for its creativity. I don't expect it to uphold ANY ideal or "just" world. It's a videogame - ART - not a book of laws. Videogames are art, and no one, I mean NO ONE has business telling artists how to express themselves. Don't like it? Cool. Don't buy then. Speak with wallet. Problem solved.
Thank you somebody with common sense in the comment section
Game companies consult Sweet Baby Inc to include diversity in their games, not the other way around. You did not do your research
@@solidsnivy5639 this video is not about those companies and also thatâs their artistic choice. Itâs not up to you to judge if it belongs there or not
THANK YOUUU
@@solidsnivy5639not every video game company is sweet baby so take a seat đ
My grandpa always said the worst thing an actor can do is show his politics, never understood that until now.
I do agree with your overall point that we should be color and gender blind I agree 100% with you but I don't believe sleep baby actually believe that especially since they got offended that a guy made a steam log of all the games sweet baby was involved in and I think that actually does more good for sweet baby than any harm because maybe I will convince someone who supports what's sweet baby is all about me I don't care honestly cuz I don't have representation as a Jewish man and I don't want representation by companies that don't understand the Jewish faith I don't want to be told that Adolf Hitler is the sole reason why I can't be happy in my life
Honestly give me how Joe Biden disrespected the Jewish religion I don't want anyone to feel like they're somehow representing my people I'd rather have a Jewish developer tell Jewish stories end video games does some bigot in silicon valley
I like playing as a girl
I just want to point out to that. There was almost none of this conversation with horizon zero. Dawn. It's almost like this talking point isn't even considered when the game is good..... You can complain about a game all you like and make up reasons as to why it's bad but you won't win. The game is good, will you?
Thank you for speaking out, some of these comments are completely absurd and clearly a product of political propaganda.
People are afraid that what happened to Disney will happen to their favorite game company so ya we're going to be a little paranoid
what pray tell happened ? đđ
Honestly, I'm just numb to this whole culture war talk. Its just the same headache inducing outrage bait time and time again, just with a different coat of paint. Basically the 2 Minute hate from 1984. And I want No part of it. Life is too short and fleeting to get worked up over every nothing burger controversy under the sun, and you just got to know what battles are worth fighting.
I appreciate your desire to be good and kind to each other but his is a very ignorant position to take. But I suppose not entirely surprising. The crux of your argument is based on the premise that people have an issue with it because they are racist, sexist homophobic etc. I would put a lot of money on the alternative scenario where people don't care about all that nonsense, they just are tired of people ruining/changing/swapping their beloved heroes and stories. The reason you're confused about it is that you are blinding yourself to the possibility that this is the case. For someone who put a lot of attention on checking facts, you didn't seem to have many in line. Or rather, you only seemed to have the ones that further your position while ignoring those that counter. I suggest if you truly want to understand the opposing viewpoint, you might want to listen to some opposing opinions and viewpoints. I suggest Melonie Mac, Critical Drinker, or Nerdrotic. They represent a very good sample of what I think the largest portion of people who you are so quick to call racist, sexist, bigoted etc.
Your delusional. Most of original video game characters have been left unchanged. We are talking about new characters and stories đ apparently itâs âwokeâ if you see anything non white male straight
name a "beloved" video game character that's been race swapped or gender swapped. if you give me 5 good ones then you're not racist or sexist if you can't then seek therapy
Zack weâre not screaming weâre gaming baby! The only time I get mad is when the worst chipotle in the country, my chipotle is always out of stuff! đĄ today I waited in line a half hour at 530pm for some pastoral chicken and they ran out of that and queso! McDonaldâs never runs out of hamburger wtf? Ya I seriously hate my towns chipotle man! Never gaming or the characters! Spyro is the best example, if you hate a color of Spyro, you can change it in the reignited collection! Race never bothers me in games accept I thought the change with Barrett in final fantasy 7 remake was weird but not a game changer! I think I like him more now, especially with the voice actor that played balthier voicing Barrett good stuff!
I donât care, longâs the game is good, but lately triple A games have been having problems. I play games for the story, Iâm not playing the game, because of the color of someone skin.
I'm not the most educated on the Sweet Baby situation, but the main thing I've heard people criticizing them for are the people working at Sweet Baby. I don't have any sources to cite so take everything in this comment with a healthy amount of skepticism, but employees for Sweet Baby have made several tweets that have give off the vibe that they're not really doing it for the sake of diversity, but instead doing it specifically to be anti-white and anti-male, as well as spreading misinformation and supporting the harassment of a number of people that criticize them for anything relating to the company or their employees.
While there are definitely bad people who just don't like diversity criticizing Sweet Baby for trying to create diversity and good people in Sweet Baby who just want to help increase diversity in games, I still think there's reason to criticize them for not taking action against some of the people in the company who are doing it specifically because of their own hate for certain groups rather than an actual desire to see more diversity in games.
Also Sweet Baby's CEO did a GDC interview, "Now You See Me: Representation as Innovation," and around 25:30 she says, "...go have a coffee with your marketing team and just terrify them with the possibility of what's going to happen if they don't give you what you want [...] I say that a lot as a joke but it's actually very very true..." so there is a possibility that not every business partner worked with Sweet Baby completely willingly.
Thank you!!! Like why is this so difficult to understand. Maybe because itâs easier to just misrepresent everything and argue againthe bad apples instead of making an argument against people who actually makes sense
I think you missed the mark. Its the identity politics that is annoying people. Yes thier is whites only minded people out there but the most of us are just exhausted of identity politics and want to escape the echo chambers of media. Plenty of great diverse games that have great natural story telling with ,ero identity politics involved
Have you not seen any of the interviews of Sweet baby ink? You have kind of a bad take
How does he have a bad take? His take is the logical one. Its been debunked sweet baby ink has made characters and people claiming this are using emotion more than facts and are spewing more racial narratives than anything else.
@@ghostofhallownest5300 because he is only telling one side and he doesn't have his facts straight. Kinda like you . With all the tweets and videos of sweet baby Inc talking about how they push there agenda , your either lying to yourself or your just ignorant. Get out of here with the sweet baby inc has been debunked crap. Unfortunately Zack has shown he really doesn't know what he us talking about. So.i could see how you being just like him in that sense would try to defend him.
First world problem :(
First world comment
First world reply
yesssssss Zach. Thank god. I love you're take. this is correct. you are awesome. Diversity is strength, literally from a genomic, biological, ecological, sociological and spiritual perspective. beautiful. chefs kiss
You know what's not correct? Your use of "you're"
@@unOrigiNik you got me. And you got me good
I both agree and disagree. Still gave the video a thumbs up. I dont have to agree with every single thing you say.
I could spin what you said around: if you can play as Bluey in a game, or play as a crab in a Dark Souls-type game, then you can play as a white dude. Who doesn't look like you.
Why does the character HAVE to look like you?
This is the correct and completely normal take to have. I'm so glad you made this video and used your platform to voice reason while everyone else has been acting completely obtuse.
>Furry dp.
Sorry, â@@snapplegu6100that my comfort with expressing myself upsets you, ya no pfp, generic name with numbers having goof. đđ
Good lord the comments. I donât know much about the situation, but people complaining over black characters in general is kinda⊠disgusting. I like when thereâs a black character in games but also when I see them I feel sad inside because I know there are people out there groaning and calling a game woke for having a black character.
Heck Iâm happy to finally see so many black characters, but I do hope some of these games have good stories to go with it. I heard about Forspoken and Redfall failing and that was sad, but do these games even employ black writers to begin with? If you have a black character in your game as a main character, I hope you have black or African writers on your team as well.
How about you do your research on Sweet Baby Inc before you make a dumb comment like this
@@rolltideroll8458sweet baby Inc is only one situation not the whole gaming industry đ
@@newagehero9605they literally worked with some of the biggest games in th eindustry, unless you want to name other similar companies that worked on games like God Of War Ragnarok, Spider-Man 1, Alan Wake 2, Suicide Squad and way more
Nobody looks at Gta San Andreas and complains. They just remember a good game.
@@newagehero9605 again, do some research đ
About Spider-Man, people forgot that even Stan Lee himself said: "Anyone can be Spider-Man."
Peter Parker is Spider-Man, Stan Lee made him to be - he will forever be
Just as anyone can be Black Panther. Even a white guy!
100% agree.
Sigh
SwitchForce: You started out by missing the point. Understandable - the "pro-gamer" side isn't as clear as it should be - but still wrong.
In games made for a predominantly male audience (remember the "M/not M" split isn't 100/0 - maybe 90/10 or 80/20) there is an unmistakable correlation between applying "DEI principles" during development and games that aren't fun to play.
We don't want to pay for, or waste time on, games we don't like. There is no political dimension to that decision.
Due to the correlation, we're cautious when there are indications a game has been DEI'd. Naturally gamers share these indications.
We know "correlation does not prove causation", but with e.g. a 90% correlation, you assume it's true until it's shown otherwise. Assuming a DEI'd game will be good, buying it, and spending 100 hours trying it out, would be stupid.
Since it's mostly guys, who like to analyze things, seek cause and effect relationships, and solve problems:
* We search for different indicators of a poorly guided development team, and share them. This is "pretend-misinterpreted" by others as evidence of anti-ism-phobias, but that's false and disingenuous.
* We search for causes behind this weirdly anti-capitalist approach to game development. And, because they're not well hidden, we find them and share them (up to a point - gamers are not good at politics). Which has resulted in false accusations, reputation destruction, threats, and so forth. The usual stuff. Amusingly enough, it's more evidence that these games are changed for the worse.
The gaming industry is still fighting to continue their foolish practices, and perhaps they have commercial reasons.
But they'll either make games we want to play, or be by Indie gaming companies. We can't be forced to buy junk, and we can't be stopped from sharing public-domain information. And few gamers will care about the "collateral damage" (DEI specialists).
13:20 woooow this is so tone deaf and ironic lol
So I am against "Forced diversity" as a concept, simply because I feel like the gaming industry is an art and should have creative liberty to make your games as you want and not someone telling you "do this or else." I am not against diversity and inclusion in games though. Though I do have some slight beef *occasionally*, for instance in Spider-Man 2, Black Cat has a girlfriend, my only beef with this is that I feel like it was established in Spider-Man 1 that Black Cat had a crush on Peter, and she definitely does canonically in the comics. So I'm not against it, I just don't want it forced or messing with pre-established characters.
thing is games aren't supposed to be made "as you want" they are made as the vision of a team meant to be enjoyed by different kinds of people not just the incels
Zach, it doesn't bother me wether a lead character in a video game is black or white or whatever, all I care about is playing a good game. Someone could also have a complex how easy or hard a game is without thinking about the target audience or the entertainment factor of the game. Like I feel like the game Princess Peach showtime is a great game but someone might feel like well because it's a female lead the Creator had to make it an easy to play game.
Diversity in video games is like fast food. It's really good in small doses, but have too much, and you'll develop gout.
Says white people
Seeing only white straight male characters is like eating the same flavor of ice cream over and over and over game until you no longer want to eat it anymore đ
@@newagehero9605 and to follow up then ppl call you names like âwokeâ because you see a diff flavor in the store and you want to buy one of those instead of the white straight male flavor youâve been t told to like for generations
I knew I liked your channel! Thanks for speaking some sense on the issue. Keep up the good work boss! đȘ
Forced diversity is when you make sure you have an equal amount of each race for example if you have 12 spots and you make sure you hire 6 white and 6 black and you hire based on diversity and not who the best for the job
Making sure there's an equal opportunity for everyone, minorities included, is important because it's fair.
Diversity also helps businesses by incorporating many different kinds of people from different walks of life, people with different backgrounds and perspectives that can give the company more insight into marketing to various demographics other than "straight white people".
@@DavinTurneraffirmative action is not equal at all
@@DavinTurner so if a white man is more qualified for a position I should hire a black person because of diversity no and vice versa
That's the most dumbest and racist take. So you're saying there are NO people of color or women that equally qualify for a job. Yeah, you look for other races that DO qualify for the job and pick them. David Duke and other Supremacist literally say the same shit you just said
@@DavinTurnerequal opportunity is fine and we have that. Whatâs being forced on us is EQUAL OUTCOME. Two completely different things.
Because diversity definitely helped Oscar's ratings, Marvel movies were only good AFTER Endgame, and arbitrary race swapping is never distracting. Right????
Wasnât the USA founded on silencing none white ppl and race swapping to make everything white?
Zach, youre a real one for not jumping on the hate wagon
If the story and gameplay come first, I could care less what my character looks like. The only issue I take is when political agenda or ideology takes the stage and I do agree with you most of it is silly and a great game sells anyway but you do have to admit when a developer makes a racist comment on X, it then forces a microscope over their work.