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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   28482 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 11, 2024

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I think there's no actual way to know what Sweet Baby Inc influenced in these games unless you work for SBI, the company, or there are leaks. Before SBI was put on as a face to the concept, though, the "woke" direction of the industry had been criticized for a long time, so the issue was never SBI specifically or even companies like SBI, but rather that devs actually seemed to want their narratives to receive influence from the type of ideology espoused by people working at or defending SBI.

Realistically, yes, SBI is only a symbol here. There's no way of knowing what SBI is actually responsible for, or if it was bad.

But sometimes the symbol is enough. The point is "wokeness in games is bad", and SBI consult on games and are (or at least the SBI employees who post on Twitter are) woke, so they stand for the whole fuzzy concept. If there's any kind of strategy here, I doubt the aim is to specifically end SBI influence on games, but rather to send a general message that the audience disapproves of wokeness. The goa may not be for SBI to change, but for the next developer to think to themselves quietly, "Hm, my audience doesn't like woke stuff, I guess I won't include that."

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