Microsoft @Xbox mandates changes at studios, hire @SweetBabyInc, erases white characters.
I spoke to ex-devs at two different studios who say DEI is ruining and altering games and studio culture.
Changes happened after Xbox meddling.
🧵(con't)
I have reasonably confirmed that the devs I spoke to used to work at the studios in question, @AvalancheSwede and @CompulsionGames.
Both Studios are also listed on the Sweet Baby Detected website.
(con't)
(correction, website is )
Microsoft made a splash at GDC, announcing their Product Inclusion guidelines for all of their studios.
Such changes have been reported elsewhere as "woke", including de-feminization of female characters and cite widely discredited studies as their basis.
Microsoft claims they do not mandate these guidelines, but in fact, they make sweeping changes at the studios they publish/partner with.sweetbabyinc.com
Alleged changes after Microsoft involvement include:
- Hiring of a DEI director.
- Hiring of a consulting firm to gender balance and review hiring/promotion policies.
- Hiring of Sweet Baby Inc. to work on the published games.
Both studios underwent these changes *after* MS and SBI involvement.
One of the biggest changes to the game were alteration of the character creation system in Contraband to remove gender differences and allow for random swapping of distinct male/female body parts, facial hair and more.
But it didn't stop there, after SBI was brought on board Compulsion Game's "South of Midnight" the main character was race swapped from white to black.
Screenshots next...
The main character of Hazel was swapped shortly after Sweet Baby Inc. involvement from white to black:
These changes to the games at both studios, and the culture changes at Contraband, both happened after MS and SBI involvement.
The implication was that publishing money was pulling the strings, mandating studio changes in hiring, hiring of DEI staff and consultants, and altering the games.
These changes do not seem to be organic, but the result of forced policies that come from the very top, powered by publishing influence and funding.
Microsoft's and Xbox's "Product Inclusion" Guidelines are more mandatory than claimed.
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That Park Place is likely referring to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin.
While That Park Place seems to speculate that it might be a violation of law, at no point do they claim it as fact.
SBI game Flintlock by @a44games has been overrun by woke:
"I used to work there. Flintlock was a good project with lots of potential, then it was ruined."
🧵(Con't)
Before I go further, please note this is rumor from a source that seems very knowledgeable about the studios inner workings. Take that as it is. If others would like to verify, please DM me anon.
The CEO and COO at a44 are no longer with the company, but the damage seems to have been done.
The good devs at a44, I tell you how to fix it at the end of this thread.
Did you know the protagonist of Flintlock used to be white?
When COO (and Casting Director) Andrea Topps Harjo joined the studio, her first actions were to change the character to hire Sweet Baby Inc. and change the main character to a PoC.
This marked the beginnings of the problems with the game and studio.
Okay, lets talk about @MattWalshBlog . I'm going to upset a lot of conservatives with this but it's important to go in with eyes wide open.
Matt Walsh is a net benefit, but he's using you, and everything has a cost.
What Matt is doing here is called "framing," specifically by setting up a straw-man argument. Framing puts an issue into a new perspective favorable to the persuader and changing the discussion to their benefit.
Gamers are upset with Matt about slamming games, but he carefully reframes it here as the victim "I'm not allowed to talk about games." And it conveniently changes the topic (because of his reach), and ignores the facts of what started it all.
Gamers aren't saying he can't talk about games, they are saying he has been playing both sides: hating games and deriding them, then riding the publicity wave opportunistically, for profit (which is not bad in my book, just don't be naïve).
This is similar to how Journalists treated SBI by omitting the triggering event from their stories, and tried to reframe it as "harassment by gamers" (a falsehood). They are trying to get you to forget and talk about it in a new "frame."
Different topic, same technique. (con't)
Back in Gamergate 1, Gamers were also upset about journalists re-framing the issue of corruption in journalism as a "hate campaign" by falsely reporting, omitting facts and gaslighting. The gaming journalists and activists succeeded in that sense and the Wikipedia entry forever enshrines a falsehood.
If you want to see the real story of gamergate, just look at the Chinese version, which portrays the real facts without omission, buzzwords or editorializing.
But Gamergate 1 had incredible momentum, and all gamers, from all walks of life and politics (yes, left AND right), that it exploded in social media. The scale was unprecedented.
Conservative media, and one outlet in particular, got wise to this and decided to give gamers a voice.
Legobutts from Sweet Baby Inc., Zoey Quinn's "PR person" and Sarkeesian, worked hard to hide the real reason Gamergate happened.
Wikipedia, a woke hive filled with Cancel Pigs, was complicit. Compare the US version to the Chinese version where they had less influence:
US Game Journalists, who considered themselves "valuable allies" more than truth finders, actively lied and obfuscated and smeared gamers for an entire year.
These false articles, of course, were now referenced by Wikipedia as factual sources. The circle of lies was compete.
Gamergate directly kicked off the era of Internet censorship. Twitter began to police trend lists and shadowbans first started to appear.
Twitter users who noticed these things were quickly condemned as conspiracy theorists, but we now know they were correct (see Twitter Files).
I used to do theater, and the director used to always remind us that audiences paid good money for their seats so we damn well better put on a good show.
She warned us that acting for ourselves was just an act of self indulgence.
At OG Blizzard (not what we have now), we always talked about the value we provided gamers. And we always worked to provide as much value as we could in the games we made. We made Battle.net free when other services charged.