It has been revealed that Sweet Baby Inc tried to charge the Indie Developers behind the Black Myth Wukong game $7 million to fix their sexist reputation. Now, This statement is a bit loaded and there is plenty to unpack. Firstly, let’s start with the obvious sexist reputation statement. It is a very loaded term and can be devastating to an Indie developer. To be clear, people are not accusing the developer of being sexist. Sweet Baby Inc is claiming that they are and charging $7 million to fix it. It is a classic case of creating a problem and selling the solution.
The scheme is quite simple. They identify what they deem to be a problem. It can be anything from Homophobia to any of the other isms like racism or sexism. You then go on a Twitter campaign and launch the allegations. This then attracts video game journalists like Kotaku and IGN, who pick on the story and parrot the same talking points. After this step is complete, they approach the developer and, with all the coverage, claim that only they have the solution to the problem.
Most developers don’t know any better or are scared that their game will be buried by negative reviews. In many other cases, most developers also genuinely don’t want to be sexist or racist. They don’t realize that the negativity is manufactured, and in the hopes of cleaning up their reputation, they agree to partner with these people. Now, many places like Kotaku claim that Sweet Baby Inc does not do what people think. While the term extort might be strong, it is hard to think otherwise when you hear employees at the company explain their strategy.
The Sweet Baby Inc Grift
A couple of months ago, I covered a story of a Sweet Baby Inc employee openly bragging about how they bring in business. The CEO of the company very openly stated that they would approach companies, and if they didn’t give her what she wanted, she would terrify them into doing it. That is why people are using words like extort when describing what Sweet Baby Inc does. So, with this context, let’s circle back to Black Myth Wukong. Last year, IGN wrote an article titled, How Black Myth: Wukong Developer’s History of Sexism Is Complicating its Journey to the West.
In it, they made several claims that the studio is sexist without any sources. Worse, they drew these conclusions based on poorly translated social media posts. Here is one of the worst examples. A translated tweet circulated that claimed the CEO said the following. “I want to expand my circle and hire more people, get licked until I cannot get an erection.” This is what sparked the original sexism claims against the studio by companies like IGN. The only problem is that the CEO never said this. Here is what he actually said.
“I wanted to expand the circle and recruit a few more people, but I got licked to the point of being unable to get an erection.” The phrase is an idiom used in the Chinese language as a colloquial expression used humorously or sarcastically to describe a situation where excessive flattery or sycophancy has an overwhelming and paralyzing effect on someone. To sum it up, In China, “getting licked” means being intentionally flattered by those seeking profits or other benefits.
Sweet Baby Inc On The Attack
This, however, is when Sweet Baby Inc saw their opportunity to attack. They approached the Chinese developer and offered their services. They stated that it came to their attention that the game had been dragged down by claims of sexism. Then, they offered to fix the issue for $7 million. Luckily, the studio had enough brains to say no. However, if you want to know why this game has been buried by negative headlines, this is the reason why.
One Chinese social media commentator explained it beautifully when they said, “The reason why the team behind “Black Myth: Wukong” has been subjected to persistent sexist attacks and slander since their first promotional video is because they have consistently refused political correctness guidance and rejected the extortionate guidance fees of millions of dollars demanded by these political correctness teams. Actually, such teams are quite common in Europe and America.
They interfere with works like “Assassin’s Creed” “Dying Light 2 Stay Human” and “God of War” by pushing for politically correct female protagonists. These changes are the direct result of the interference and guidance of such teams. Game science teams refuse to communicate with these groups and reject their interference.
Most importantly, they refuse to pay the exorbitant $7 million in guidance fees. This is the direct reason why they are being attacked and slandered. Some justifications are based on the team’s lack of diversity or representation, which doesn’t align with the political correctness standards. A typical example is an article by a major IGN writer criticizing “Hogwarts Legacy” and refusing to evaluate or promote it due to its alleged lack of political correctness.”
Conclusion
There is a lot of money in creating a problem and selling the solution. It helps even more when you have every single video game outlet playing along in a hive mind. IGN owns Eurogamer, GamesIndustry.biz, Rock Paper Shotgun, and VG24/7. These are only to name a few. If you ever wondered why every outlet always has the same opinions, now you know why. Luckily, this game CEO was smart enough to see through the scam. Hopefully, more developers will stand up in the future.
[…] with both. So, let’s break everything down. A couple of days ago, I covered a video about Black Myth Wukong and Sweet Baby Inc. While I am not going to go over the full details again, here is a quick […]