Exactly! Gaming devs spent too much time listening to people who don't even play games in the first place and never really would outside of maybe the occasional cell phone game. These people aren't going to buy your product and never were going to buy it.
Nah bro, the new revenue meta is to rely on Twitter users promising to buy games they don’t care about and won’t play just to spite actual gamers. I mean, it’s working so far, right? Right?😂😂
Its not about making games for people to enjoy. It's about cultural reingineering of society. The people in charge of the company got their payoffs, the executives will get taken care of. Therefore nothing will change. Expect it to get worse. Much much worse.
"Impacted by layoffs" is just a softer way to say "our executives took all the wrong turns and now the studio is losing money because of their stupidity!"
Nope. The executives were assured payoffs from those really in charge to do this. They got their cash, and will get high paying jobs somewhere else for doing what they were told. This all went according to plan. The game is rigged. Keep up.
Now that you mention that, I kinda feel sorry for the developer. Sub-Saharan African culture isn't as abundant in westerner's minds compared to European and even East Asian cultures. If the developers could've invested in game designers instead of a DEI consultant, this could've been an opportunity to introduce some Sub-Saharan African culture to pop culture.
@@Ability-King-KK or they know nothing of the actual culture their ancestors were part of. Seriously, so many people in the USA will say "I'm [nationality]" when they're 3 or more generations removed from the immigrants who came from that nation. It's usually the immigrant, then their children are first generation, grandchildren 2nd, exc. I personally know a bit about my ancestors, but that's through actually learning it. I also don't claim to be that nationality, I'm descended from German and Polish immigrants, not actually German or Polish. I'd need to do some serious research to make a story truly based on either nation's history and mythology, even though they both contributed quite a bit to the culture in the USA.
@@victornoel36 It isn't abundant because sub saharan africa literally does not have cultural exports. Beyond that, people from Africa are basically nonexistant in game development, and if anyone else were to try to make a game set in africa they would be called racist. IGN already did this to a potential RE5 remake.
The sweet baby kiss of death is real, if you're a game developer/publisher, and you don't wanna end up in the negative. Then don't hire sbi or any other similar company for your game.
@@dimsumboy22 if that's the case, then it's a matter of calculation. How much money do you get from grants and funding from having these nitwits talk to your devs? And afterwards, just have the devs ignore them.
@@Ilyak1986 no price is too steep for indoctrination. Doesn’t matter if it fails. Push it into everything. It’s not for us. It’s for the next generation that grows up on it and then pushes back against us. This is indoctrination stuff. Also DEI companies are funded by the government like SBI. Which is funded by Canadian government
Here's the real story to indie devs: Influencer friends, especially ones associated with gaming websites, can give you all the positive press you want but it won't make your game suceed. Those days are over. You'd have much better luck finding a popular streamer who likes your genre of games and giving them a free early copy.
I know for me, a game I might have had my eye on will get a substantial prestige boost if Civvie reviews it. Even if it's kinda trash, I might still enjoy it.
Funnily enough, this game had a whole section about it at the game award. Even with millions of people looking at your game, far more than vast majority of indie games could ever dream, the "Sweet Baby" touch is still stronger and will doom your game.
It's a Metroidvania in a sea of BETTER made Metroidvanias and it was obvious that they only cared about using a black main character more than anything else.
Yes and no, there are plenty of space for new metroidvanias. Or should I say good metroidvanias. The game could be more successful if they would actually thought and spend time on some marketing and developing. Maybe it would be a better idea to just release demo/early access. Instead they decided to sink money into SBI and paid the price. Oh, I would forget: If they would drop this terrible art style and character design it would help too.
"There's three ways to do things: the right way, the wrong way, and the Sweet Baby Inc. way." "Isn't that last one just the wrong way?" "Yeah, but it's faster."
that guy who said the game only needed a little more time in the oven and it wouldnt have been big cuz niche anyways. 1) SBI is an INSANELY expensive 'consultation' they lost that time by paying someone to tell them that there game wasnt offensive. 2) even niche tittles his into 4 didgets on the regular...hell even garbage games make 1k at least.
Ikr! Like Blasphemous is niche as f and look at how praised it is! Even the 2nd part which toned down a lot of what made the original stand out still got great reviews!
Roflmao. "Wasn't offensive." When they treat gamers like fools, I wonder if it's because they think that gamers are an acceptable casualty...or if they believe that they are the anointed ones and gamers are obviously too st*pid to think for themselves. Whatever the case, it's in your face and not fun at all.
"Papers, Please" is probably about as niche as it can be, given the elevator pitch for that game is "You review paperwork and give a red or green stamp", and yet it has 500 people playing it right now, 10 years after its release. Being a niche game has NEVER stopped a game from being successful as long as you do it well. This shit honestly reminds me of SUNSET, which was so woke, one of the selling point of their game was "it use traditional gaming controls such as WASD to move"
there's this..... trend that i've noticed where game companies started to focus their attention on "modern audiences" is that on its own, minus all the labels of "modern audiences" that we clearly can see, bad? not really it's normal for companies to attract more people to buy their product, that's how marketing works, and that in and of itself, isnt too bad what most of these companies dont realize (or maybe they did, but ignored it anyway, i'm not sure which these days) is that: by using aggressive DEI methods that is forcefully injected into a game, they are inserting political agenda into a media that is not news, but a hobby. and by doing that, *they are ignoring, or even pushing away their old audiences for "potential" audiences* most gamers play these games as a hobby, not to go into real world politics, but these companies make games to cater to people who wants real life political validation. this is like..... gambling 100 dollars, to potentially have a 50/50 chance to win 10 dollars, repeatedly.
Another part of the issue is that they are way late to the social media party. It took them years to understand that they could use the internet for market research... And now they believe that Twitter is a good representation of the market. They seem to have not realized that the only things very active on twitter are bots and hate-filled people with nothing else to do. And that includes all the Kotaku/polygon/ign writers. Even without consulting firms, big game companies are completely disconnected with their player base. Blizzard is a perfect example of it.
@@fnors2that's exactly what they mean when they say they cater to the modern audience. This alleged modern audience consists entirely of activists on twitter and these people just don't play games.
The whole “wider audience” thing sounds good on paper but is a terrible idea in practice anyways. A lot of people, including a lot of game company execs, seem to view video games as almost homogenous across the board. They try to broaden their game to everyone and then get surprised when no amount of dumbing down and changes will attract golfers to a bowling alley.
Considering the extortion type prices these "consultation" groups demand, I'm sure the company could have saved some jobs if they had some of the money used to hire SBI. Like seriously what expenses does a consultant business have to demand over $500,000?
Well apparently nothing if the game flops. But it's the people that give them the 500.000 who are in the wrong, I too would accept 500.000 if I thought I knew what I was doing even though I was actually clueless, it's the person paying the money who is dumb and poor now.
@@fernie-fernandez That is the narrative that establishment industry journalists want to promote. It is categorically false. Gamers were attacked by the gaming press and outspoken leftists in the industry for not tolerating their slop, and gamers simply stood up to them like the bullies that they are. That some of those leftists happened to be women is inconsequential. They are idiots first, and women second. Gamers stood up to them for being idiots, not for being women. This is because Gamers treated the male leftists with the same contempt as they did the female leftists. Their gender was irrelevant, only the absurdity of their ideology mattered.
@@fernie-fernandez That's what absolute pathetic morons think. GamerGate is simply people who realized you had to gatekeep your games, or the woke freaks will come in and gatekeep YOU out of them, while pretending they're not.
Yeah. From what I can see from the reviews, the game would have a good potential but there is a lot of bugs and unbalanced stuff. The polish of a game is really important.
@@ThePopo543 🙄 he can go cry a river. He made bad choices aboth the direction the game took, used SBI 'help' and then crys about the game tanking. Its not like gamers havent been complaining vociferously about DEI and politics gettin unnecessarily shoehorned into games. He knew EXACTLY what minefield he was waltzing into and he chose to do it anyways.
I will never understand how -an actual Kenyan person- a person of Kenyan descent who's making a game based on his own life would need a ragtag of French-Canadians who've never even set foot in Kenya (or Africa for that matter) in their lives to tell him what his own culture and folklore and life experiences are. Srsly Abubakar, why? That would be like an Arab hiring some Canadian DEI clowns who've never set foot in the desert cuz they'd drop dead at a mere 40 celsius to help him make a game about a sheikh hunting witches and demons in his own irl hometown.
The best way to describe this shit is "a toxic combo": an useless (and bad) MetroidVania clone that no one wanted (especially when in that specific genre there are dozens of little masterpieces every year) + SBI and their crap. It was a failure since the beginning.
Sweet Baby is not guaranteeing failure, because their impact generally is too small potato to even matter most of the time. However, it does gives you indicator where the developer's priorities lie during development. Mostly if company hire group like SBI, is because their company culture is align with them.
Which is dumb and pointless in this case cuz the developer is already of Kenyan descent and he based the game on his own life, like why did he even need those clowns for anything??
What were their sales as opposed to their player count? I don't expect the defenders to play but just purchasing an unplayed game could be the extent of their support. Beyond that, nothing of value lost.
As Asmond says, "DEI won't make a good game bad, pause for dramatic stare at the camera/chat, but it will make a bad game worse". XD It's just a shield for their bad game.
They tried to appeal to the mythical creature known as the Modern Audience. On account of the fact said creature is not real, they set themselves up for failure. Learn from their mistakes. Don't go chasing rainbows.
Rule to note at this point for any game genre that has story and characters. If you are game dev do not hire a consultation company at all if possible, if you decide to anyway I suggest investigating consulting firms first. As well as checking actual reviews by gamers on any game the consultation firm is associated with.
Why did they choose the name Sweet baby anyways. It would make you think they are related to baby products and yet they are dealing with games like Suicide Squad. Without context and only knowing the names those two names are definitely something you shouldnt put together
If I remember correctly, it was a sort of "cute" way to say say all people who work with them, will be their sweet babies so to speak. From my point of view there is a good amount of Condensing tone coming from the person who said the reason in video form. The first sentence is what I remeber from the video.
@@thecompareablezombieIts creepy, in that bad touch sort of way. 😬 Why would anyone want to use a name that sounds like somthing a creeper would call their would be prey?
So, when these "indie" studios close down after releasing a game. It's because they failed to pitch a production studio on a new game. "Hey we have this cool game, it's going to cost X and you may make Y back." if the production studio isn't impressed by the game. By the types of games the market likes (a side scrolling 2d platformer). By the past performance of the studio (which it was lack luster). By the attitude of the studio. They say "nah we'll pass" and the studio has to shut down. So which aspect of this studio failed? I've seen game studios fail to make a profitable game but go on to make subsequent games. Probably because they had excellent pitch skills. I've also seen excellent games fail to get follow on because their team was terrible. Or they were able to keep the budget down enough that studios were willing to let them take the risk. I personally didn't here much about this game. One of the reviewers I follow said it was an up coming title. That was it. So I would say they were "expensive" in that they didn't have a reasonable budget and failed to make sales or gain traction at launch. This game is clearly pushing a political agenda. Was that it's downfall? I don't know. I see it as just another side scroller. The fluffy sheep game is free and probably ten times more fun. So I would say this Zau game is just shuvel ware in that crank out as many as you can. Which is why I say it's expensive. They probably gave it the full treatment which costs more than it's worth. Definitely going up against free games of similar quality.
SBI always asks for hefty payouts like they wanted 7 million to work on wu kong. If they didn't go full SBI simp mode then maybe it would have been easier to eat this loss.
I read that one of the game designers were from Kenya so I am not sure why they felt they needed to pay SBI consultant fees, they are pretty expensive and I don't think they brought anything of worth here, the studio already had someone understanding the protagonist better then some Canadians so it basically just meant that the game would have to sell better to go even while linking the game to other games SBI worked on like SS: KtJL. Yeah, there are situations when you might need to hire consultants but they have to bring something you don't already have or you are just wasting company money. They probably should have hired someone to improve the gameplay instead.
@@arkbien9303 That is still a poor excuse to spending a few millions on a service he clearly could have performed himself. That means it was either a very poor decision or a scam that he got a cut from. In either case, when a company makes such stupid decisions it is no mystery they had to fire people.
@@loke6664 oh no, I wholeheartedly agree with you. I was just pointing out one of the dev's was already a part of SBI and agreed with their ideology. I have no sympathy for them or the company. They 💩 in their own bed and other people had to suffer. And further more, I heard that they specifically fired and laid off employees with light skin, you know, r a c i s m.
Remember, guys, people who were mentioning that the game didn't sell well were lying, and only showing a fraction of the players. It sold so well that they had to layoff a bunch of their own staff
When I saw this at the game award show I knew i wasn't going to play it anyways. What i think caused it to die was and not limited to: 1) limited intrest in theme/ story 2)POP was announced in the same night at the TGAS 3) and the black Pather movie hype trains was pulling into that station. 4) flashy gameplay
Well what did they expect attaching SBI to work. The guy who started the company was from SBI and went full in on it while also slandering consumers. Of course they failed.
If I recall SBI wasn't just a consultation company for the creator. The creator was actually involved in SBI in a high position at one point and parted ways with them.
I wonder if hero hei is gonna talk about the Team Fortress 2 backlash after valve announced the funko fusion dlc and tf2 becoming "overwhelming negative" in recent reviews
valve made a deal to allow TF2 characters be used in the game Funko Fusion as DLC. TF2 fans are vehemently angry about it because, amongst many issues, TF2 has a hidious problem with bots and cheaters @@venlocity2
I think this will be the new meta for studios to release a game then after 2-3 month they fire 20-30% of the company and hire for the next game release+3-4 month. Or full closure. The Project time workers.
As sad as the news of the studio having layoffs after their debut title, I hope this is a clear message and a warning to other game devs and studios. Still, I don’t think this will be the only case of this happening, unfortunately
It's not sad news, it's super happy news. I'm DELIGHTED. I am laughing as they're getting fired 😂 Just like THEY would laugh if you were homeless, because they hate people who don't think exactly like them. You think mostly like them but have one different thought? They still hate you. And I hate them with a burning passion too. And I'm a guy who wears dresses. But I'm not a disgusting woke bigot.
It's already impossible to understand why big devs pay people to ruin their games, but why would you as an Indie? At least the AAA ones are burning money they have.
Wait, this game is already out? It been out since April? Every single time this game crossed my path, it was "upcoming" or "In development" and now I find out the game was already released in all but one of those instants(and it was the one where the reporter was actually playing the game while the others were talking over canned pr footage). I was thinking this was coming out in winter or some shit.
I remember the first time I saw the trailed and thought that looks good. I love MetroidVania games, but this game had stronger competitors. The other bad thing is that the only advertising for this game that I saw was the involvement of SBI. That’s how I remembered the existence of this game. Bad or good is still advertising, but SBI is a killer advertisement.
More like studio executives made a bunch of bad decisions, completely tone deaf and never listen while boasting an open door policy. Then they heard that AAA studio executives are getting ESG money so they board the SBI train, which turns out to be the last nail in the coffin, so these executives decide to screw the staff over just to keep themselves afloat until they find the next gig. Very typical game industry executive behaviour.
Tales of Pin
gg
Turtle approved
they getting smarter
Random user approved
Tales of Density is best of the series. Fite me.
Don’t make games with people who don’t care about games,for people who don’t care about games, it’s that simple.
This!
Exactly! Gaming devs spent too much time listening to people who don't even play games in the first place and never really would outside of maybe the occasional cell phone game. These people aren't going to buy your product and never were going to buy it.
Nah bro, the new revenue meta is to rely on Twitter users promising to buy games they don’t care about and won’t play just to spite actual gamers. I mean, it’s working so far, right? Right?😂😂
Its not about making games for people to enjoy. It's about cultural reingineering of society. The people in charge of the company got their payoffs, the executives will get taken care of. Therefore nothing will change.
Expect it to get worse. Much much worse.
Are you saying you don't like games designed to make money instead of designed to be fun
"Impacted by layoffs" is just a softer way to say "our executives took all the wrong turns and now the studio is losing money because of their stupidity!"
But of course, the executives who are responsible aren't the ones losing their jobs.
Nope. The executives were assured payoffs from those really in charge to do this. They got their cash, and will get high paying jobs somewhere else for doing what they were told.
This all went according to plan.
The game is rigged. Keep up.
Go woke, go broke
Tbf, the devs are usually the root of the problem. After all, the management only hires people that fit the agenda.
Or the CEO wanted a new yatch
Tell me why a game based on kenya folklore and is being made by a descendant of those people need a dei consultation company is beyond me.
Because I wouldn't be surprised if the descendant knows nothing about making video games.
Now that you mention that, I kinda feel sorry for the developer. Sub-Saharan African culture isn't as abundant in westerner's minds compared to European and even East Asian cultures. If the developers could've invested in game designers instead of a DEI consultant, this could've been an opportunity to introduce some Sub-Saharan African culture to pop culture.
@@Ability-King-KKneither does ANY dei consultation company
@@Ability-King-KK or they know nothing of the actual culture their ancestors were part of.
Seriously, so many people in the USA will say "I'm [nationality]" when they're 3 or more generations removed from the immigrants who came from that nation. It's usually the immigrant, then their children are first generation, grandchildren 2nd, exc.
I personally know a bit about my ancestors, but that's through actually learning it. I also don't claim to be that nationality, I'm descended from German and Polish immigrants, not actually German or Polish. I'd need to do some serious research to make a story truly based on either nation's history and mythology, even though they both contributed quite a bit to the culture in the USA.
@@victornoel36 It isn't abundant because sub saharan africa literally does not have cultural exports. Beyond that, people from Africa are basically nonexistant in game development, and if anyone else were to try to make a game set in africa they would be called racist. IGN already did this to a potential RE5 remake.
everything 'Sweet Baby' touches turns to 'baby shit'
Even baby shit has better consistency
Amen.
Sweet Baby Shit
Sounds like a name for PDF syndicate
dang, near 500 likes? i didn't think it was gonna get over that much xD
Thanks guys lol
I got no compassion for someone who decided to work with people who want no good for my hobbies
I'm laughing at their layoffs
0:11 Oh look, ZAU actually reached their entire target demographic: Minorities.
True, literally peak performance 🗿
Gonna have to laugh at this cuz I didn't buy it and have no interest in it either.
"This is a win for Sweet Baby Inc. because the game has gained overly positive reviews (with only 20 people in total player base)" - SBI probably
*post celebrating guy standing in 3rd place on a podium*
SBI:WE'RE THE BEST!
Everyone else: *confused expression*
@@greymane_gaming3435
I know what your referencing, but _third_ place? SBI could only be third place in a race of three.
@@the1necromancer yeah... went with the meme for the lols my joke would get. :)
@@the1necromancer I was about to say third is too high cause they still get a medal 😂
The sweet baby kiss of death is real, if you're a game developer/publisher, and you don't wanna end up in the negative. Then don't hire sbi or any other similar company for your game.
All thanks to Sweet Baby Infection. I was actually curious aboht this game cuz of its style and it looked good too
You probably HAVE to hire them or another company for grants and funding.
@@dimsumboy22 if that's the case, then it's a matter of calculation. How much money do you get from grants and funding from having these nitwits talk to your devs? And afterwards, just have the devs ignore them.
never hire a consultant that forces their agenda on your project
@@Ilyak1986 no price is too steep for indoctrination. Doesn’t matter if it fails. Push it into everything. It’s not for us. It’s for the next generation that grows up on it and then pushes back against us.
This is indoctrination stuff.
Also DEI companies are funded by the government like SBI. Which is funded by Canadian government
Here's the real story to indie devs: Influencer friends, especially ones associated with gaming websites, can give you all the positive press you want but it won't make your game suceed. Those days are over. You'd have much better luck finding a popular streamer who likes your genre of games and giving them a free early copy.
I know Gaming Brit Show, Did You Know Gaming, & Scott The Woz would probably help...
I know for me, a game I might have had my eye on will get a substantial prestige boost if Civvie reviews it. Even if it's kinda trash, I might still enjoy it.
This game was advertised on Gameranx, it had hundreds of thousands who knew about it, but it failed anyway because it was unappealing
@@Uzarran or making a soulslike and getting Iron Pineapple to play it.
I know one streamer that played it and enjoyed it, but I think we prefered watching him playing the game instead of us doing it
Funnily enough, this game had a whole section about it at the game award. Even with millions of people looking at your game, far more than vast majority of indie games could ever dream, the "Sweet Baby" touch is still stronger and will doom your game.
It's a Metroidvania in a sea of BETTER made Metroidvanias and it was obvious that they only cared about using a black main character more than anything else.
Just look at animal well which is probably one of the better metroidvania’s of 2024.
Yes and no, there are plenty of space for new metroidvanias. Or should I say good metroidvanias. The game could be more successful if they would actually thought and spend time on some marketing and developing. Maybe it would be a better idea to just release demo/early access. Instead they decided to sink money into SBI and paid the price.
Oh, I would forget: If they would drop this terrible art style and character design it would help too.
It's an SBI game published by EA. This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.
Until now I didn't even know EA published Crybaby inc
@@50ksavagegoodsavage4 Either this is a joke or you severely misunderstood my comment.
@@50ksavagegoodsavage4 yikes
That's the sweet baby ink Effect
"There's three ways to do things: the right way, the wrong way, and the Sweet Baby Inc. way."
"Isn't that last one just the wrong way?"
"Yeah, but it's faster."
I understood that reference.
Just make our own games without getting interfered by big publishers or the likes of Sweet Baby Ink
Our?
that guy who said the game only needed a little more time in the oven and it wouldnt have been big cuz niche anyways.
1) SBI is an INSANELY expensive 'consultation' they lost that time by paying someone to tell them that there game wasnt offensive.
2) even niche tittles his into 4 didgets on the regular...hell even garbage games make 1k at least.
Ikr! Like Blasphemous is niche as f and look at how praised it is! Even the 2nd part which toned down a lot of what made the original stand out still got great reviews!
Roflmao. "Wasn't offensive." When they treat gamers like fools, I wonder if it's because they think that gamers are an acceptable casualty...or if they believe that they are the anointed ones and gamers are obviously too st*pid to think for themselves.
Whatever the case, it's in your face and not fun at all.
"Papers, Please" is probably about as niche as it can be, given the elevator pitch for that game is "You review paperwork and give a red or green stamp", and yet it has 500 people playing it right now, 10 years after its release.
Being a niche game has NEVER stopped a game from being successful as long as you do it well.
This shit honestly reminds me of SUNSET, which was so woke, one of the selling point of their game was "it use traditional gaming controls such as WASD to move"
@@FireSiku THIS is the best example to prove how sh*t SBI really is, and how it's a lie that a game like this only failed because "it's niche."
Oh wow, who could've predicted this?
@@sincerelynotme3522 🤯🤯🤯
They paid Sweet Baby Parasites Inc. to tank their studio, just like Volition. Do NOT let these "consultation firms" in your games.
SBI is like the NFT of the gaming scene. Promised to be this huge big thing by corpos, only to be an utter disappointment that NO consumer wants
Almost as if, spitting on the face of the consumer was a bad idea.
Crazy, isn't it?
When you make a deal with the devil, the devil will get his due
there's this..... trend that i've noticed where game companies started to focus their attention on "modern audiences"
is that on its own, minus all the labels of "modern audiences" that we clearly can see, bad? not really
it's normal for companies to attract more people to buy their product, that's how marketing works, and that in and of itself, isnt too bad
what most of these companies dont realize (or maybe they did, but ignored it anyway, i'm not sure which these days) is that:
by using aggressive DEI methods that is forcefully injected into a game, they are inserting political agenda into a media that is not news, but a hobby.
and by doing that, *they are ignoring, or even pushing away their old audiences for "potential" audiences*
most gamers play these games as a hobby, not to go into real world politics, but these companies make games to cater to people who wants real life political validation.
this is like..... gambling 100 dollars, to potentially have a 50/50 chance to win 10 dollars, repeatedly.
If all they wanna do is attract wider audiences, then they should just release beach/swimwear skins. Ez.
Another part of the issue is that they are way late to the social media party.
It took them years to understand that they could use the internet for market research... And now they believe that Twitter is a good representation of the market.
They seem to have not realized that the only things very active on twitter are bots and hate-filled people with nothing else to do. And that includes all the Kotaku/polygon/ign writers.
Even without consulting firms, big game companies are completely disconnected with their player base. Blizzard is a perfect example of it.
@@fnors2that's exactly what they mean when they say they cater to the modern audience. This alleged modern audience consists entirely of activists on twitter and these people just don't play games.
The whole “wider audience” thing sounds good on paper but is a terrible idea in practice anyways. A lot of people, including a lot of game company execs, seem to view video games as almost homogenous across the board. They try to broaden their game to everyone and then get surprised when no amount of dumbing down and changes will attract golfers to a bowling alley.
The only games SBI worked on that survived already had brand recognition and an established fanbase to rely on. Original IPs just floundered about.
Stop making games with people who say they hate gamers.
So... who here actually heard of this game in something that didn't also mention SBI's involvement?
Considering the extortion type prices these "consultation" groups demand, I'm sure the company could have saved some jobs if they had some of the money used to hire SBI.
Like seriously what expenses does a consultant business have to demand over $500,000?
Well apparently nothing if the game flops. But it's the people that give them the 500.000 who are in the wrong, I too would accept 500.000 if I thought I knew what I was doing even though I was actually clueless, it's the person paying the money who is dumb and poor now.
Well considering SBI demanded 7 MILLION USD from Black Myth : Wukong ... them charging an indie dev half a million seems about right.
I know what expenses they have to demand that much: therapy costs! Because they are so crazy they must be needing a very good therapist 😂
The first rule of successful game development: GamerGate was, and continues to be, 100% correct. Respect GamerGaters, and listen to them.
Weren't those simply guys who made surprisingly misogynistic attacks...!?
@@fernie-fernandez That is the narrative that establishment industry journalists want to promote. It is categorically false. Gamers were attacked by the gaming press and outspoken leftists in the industry for not tolerating their slop, and gamers simply stood up to them like the bullies that they are.
That some of those leftists happened to be women is inconsequential. They are idiots first, and women second. Gamers stood up to them for being idiots, not for being women. This is because Gamers treated the male leftists with the same contempt as they did the female leftists. Their gender was irrelevant, only the absurdity of their ideology mattered.
@@fernie-fernandez That's what absolute pathetic morons think. GamerGate is simply people who realized you had to gatekeep your games, or the woke freaks will come in and gatekeep YOU out of them, while pretending they're not.
It's always a waste of money
Because you don't ask them for solving problems
You ask them to make up problems and solve them
It's double waste
Triple waste because their involvement in the first place is the main problem that causes many people to not buy it even if they originally wanted to.
@@eldenvedetta635 x4 waste: game gets worse so any ordinary human doesn't buy it too
@@yaroslavyevsieiev5890 So true 😂😭😂
Maybe if they didn't give their money to SBI as tribute and spent that amount into polishing the game then things would turn out different
Yeah.
From what I can see from the reviews, the game would have a good potential
but there is a lot of bugs and unbalanced stuff.
The polish of a game is really important.
Whenever a gaming studio invites SBI to work on their game, I have no sympathy for them because they have done it to themselves.
Cater to the target audience accordingly.
"Difficult Time"
Meanwhile Elden Ring DLC sells 5 million copies.
The creator behind Zau was a founding member of the precursor group to SBI, called Baby Sucre (sucre=sweet)
They Zau'd themselves.
Dont worry
Theyll find a way to blame it on racism or whatever
They already did. The developer made a video like a month ago whining about it.
@@ThePopo543 🙄 he can go cry a river. He made bad choices aboth the direction the game took, used SBI 'help' and then crys about the game tanking.
Its not like gamers havent been complaining vociferously about DEI and politics gettin unnecessarily shoehorned into games. He knew EXACTLY what minefield he was waltzing into and he chose to do it anyways.
I will never understand how -an actual Kenyan person- a person of Kenyan descent who's making a game based on his own life would need a ragtag of French-Canadians who've never even set foot in Kenya (or Africa for that matter) in their lives to tell him what his own culture and folklore and life experiences are. Srsly Abubakar, why? That would be like an Arab hiring some Canadian DEI clowns who've never set foot in the desert cuz they'd drop dead at a mere 40 celsius to help him make a game about a sheikh hunting witches and demons in his own irl hometown.
Would they have done better without SBI? Probably
Did they waste money on the consultation? Without a doubt
ZAU is a new metric Zero Active Users
In the world of design there's a motto: Keep-It-Simple-Stupid.
I think it's the same case with games.
The keyword for successful game: fun & works.
It was definitely a waste of money working with SBI.
Stay hydrated hero it's pretty hot out
The best way to describe this shit is "a toxic combo": an useless (and bad) MetroidVania clone that no one wanted (especially when in that specific genre there are dozens of little masterpieces every year) + SBI and their crap. It was a failure since the beginning.
This is what happens when you create a game with woke in mind. Everything woke is destined to fail.
Yep
Woke, not woke. I don't care. All I care about is if the game is fun to play.
What does woke even mean? I see it everywhere and still don't know what it means beyond making things no one asked for.
@@andrewmildenberg4210 you know da wey
@@andrewmildenberg4210 Nah, i don't like being lectured at by failed activists. Nor do I like giving them money to continue to do so.
Game Company's Like this REALLY need to get there shit together and Actually Not make everything about business.
I agree. While not a game company, Rooster Teeth went out of business because of this exact same problem.
@@jordanholloman5907 Hm, Okay...
Another day another thing happening on twitter
This isn't Twitter.
No one hate the game, simply no one is interested, not even the minority that they thought about.
if ceos actually had to lose their "bonuses" each time a company shits the bed DEI wouldve been dead on arrival
Sabotaged from the inside.
Sad.
Sweet Baby is not guaranteeing failure, because their impact generally is too small potato to even matter most of the time. However, it does gives you indicator where the developer's priorities lie during development. Mostly if company hire group like SBI, is because their company culture is align with them.
Which is dumb and pointless in this case cuz the developer is already of Kenyan descent and he based the game on his own life, like why did he even need those clowns for anything??
And if their culture is aligned with them, then we know they hate money, hate us, and refuse to do their jobs, so they don't deserve money
Their only motivation to make games is to spite people that don't share their world view
Moral of the story, don't pander to activists.
What were their sales as opposed to their player count? I don't expect the defenders to play but just purchasing an unplayed game could be the extent of their support. Beyond that, nothing of value lost.
As Asmond says, "DEI won't make a good game bad, pause for dramatic stare at the camera/chat, but it will make a bad game worse". XD
It's just a shield for their bad game.
And nothing of value was lost. I just hope they don't infect other studios.
Don’t these companies see the pattern?🤦♀️
They tried to appeal to the mythical creature known as the Modern Audience. On account of the fact said creature is not real, they set themselves up for failure. Learn from their mistakes. Don't go chasing rainbows.
this came up in sidescrollers and it seems all of those fired people were -dun, dun DUUUUN, white guys
They should've started identifying as she/they, they'd have definitely kept their jobs then.
Confirmed, the game was an intentional flop to purge "wrongthink" out of the company.
Rule to note at this point for any game genre that has story and characters. If you are game dev do not hire a consultation company at all if possible, if you decide to anyway I suggest investigating consulting firms first. As well as checking actual reviews by gamers on any game the consultation firm is associated with.
Why did they choose the name Sweet baby anyways.
It would make you think they are related to baby products and yet they are dealing with games like Suicide Squad.
Without context and only knowing the names those two names are definitely something you shouldnt put together
If I remember correctly, it was a sort of "cute" way to say say all people who work with them, will be their sweet babies so to speak.
From my point of view there is a good amount of Condensing tone coming from the person who said the reason in video form. The first sentence is what I remeber from the video.
@@thecompareablezombieIts creepy, in that bad touch sort of way. 😬 Why would anyone want to use a name that sounds like somthing a creeper would call their would be prey?
So, when these "indie" studios close down after releasing a game. It's because they failed to pitch a production studio on a new game.
"Hey we have this cool game, it's going to cost X and you may make Y back."
if the production studio isn't impressed by the game. By the types of games the market likes (a side scrolling 2d platformer). By the past performance of the studio (which it was lack luster). By the attitude of the studio.
They say "nah we'll pass"
and the studio has to shut down.
So which aspect of this studio failed? I've seen game studios fail to make a profitable game but go on to make subsequent games. Probably because they had excellent pitch skills.
I've also seen excellent games fail to get follow on because their team was terrible.
Or they were able to keep the budget down enough that studios were willing to let them take the risk.
I personally didn't here much about this game. One of the reviewers I follow said it was an up coming title. That was it.
So I would say they were "expensive" in that they didn't have a reasonable budget and failed to make sales or gain traction at launch.
This game is clearly pushing a political agenda. Was that it's downfall? I don't know. I see it as just another side scroller. The fluffy sheep game is free and probably ten times more fun. So I would say this Zau game is just shuvel ware in that crank out as many as you can. Which is why I say it's expensive. They probably gave it the full treatment which costs more than it's worth. Definitely going up against free games of similar quality.
The Devs of this game got catapulted to fame by electronic arts and the media and still didnt sell shit
SBI always asks for hefty payouts like they wanted 7 million to work on wu kong.
If they didn't go full SBI simp mode then maybe it would have been easier to eat this loss.
I read that one of the game designers were from Kenya so I am not sure why they felt they needed to pay SBI consultant fees, they are pretty expensive and I don't think they brought anything of worth here, the studio already had someone understanding the protagonist better then some Canadians so it basically just meant that the game would have to sell better to go even while linking the game to other games SBI worked on like SS: KtJL.
Yeah, there are situations when you might need to hire consultants but they have to bring something you don't already have or you are just wasting company money.
They probably should have hired someone to improve the gameplay instead.
Heard he was one of the original members of the original company that became Sweet Baby Inc.
If so, that tells you everything you need to know.
@@arkbien9303 That is still a poor excuse to spending a few millions on a service he clearly could have performed himself.
That means it was either a very poor decision or a scam that he got a cut from.
In either case, when a company makes such stupid decisions it is no mystery they had to fire people.
@@loke6664 oh no, I wholeheartedly agree with you. I was just pointing out one of the dev's was already a part of SBI and agreed with their ideology.
I have no sympathy for them or the company. They 💩 in their own bed and other people had to suffer. And further more, I heard that they specifically fired and laid off employees with light skin, you know, r a c i s m.
for those who don't know, Ubisoft heavily astroturfs reddit. Always be suspicious of anyone praising or bringing up ubi titles out of nowhere.
I think that if executives run a company into the ground, the employees should be able to sue them for losses.
It's all about "the message"
"Praise from critics and players alike"
What players?
Remember, guys, people who were mentioning that the game didn't sell well were lying, and only showing a fraction of the players. It sold so well that they had to layoff a bunch of their own staff
When I saw this at the game award show I knew i wasn't going to play it anyways. What i think caused it to die was and not limited to:
1) limited intrest in theme/ story
2)POP was announced in the same night at the TGAS
3) and the black Pather movie hype trains was pulling into that station.
4) flashy gameplay
Don't want none won't be none.
SBI means no buy
Yes my friend !
Well what did they expect attaching SBI to work. The guy who started the company was from SBI and went full in on it while also slandering consumers. Of course they failed.
Nobody buys our stuff, but we're still proud!
Surgent Studio is gonna go the way of Volition I see 🥤
2:00 the difference between them and me is that I did bought Hogwart Legacy out of spite and leave good review on Steam
Exactly, while they pretend to. They say on reddit they're going to buy it to "own the chuds" while they don't even have the money TO buy it LMAO
If I recall SBI wasn't just a consultation company for the creator. The creator was actually involved in SBI in a high position at one point and parted ways with them.
I wonder if hero hei is gonna talk about the Team Fortress 2 backlash after valve announced the funko fusion dlc and tf2 becoming "overwhelming negative" in recent reviews
The what
valve made a deal to allow TF2 characters be used in the game Funko Fusion as DLC. TF2 fans are vehemently angry about it because, amongst many issues, TF2 has a hidious problem with bots and cheaters @@venlocity2
@@arkbien9303 that's wild, I wonder if that's why Valve is finally doing something about the bots lol
I think this will be the new meta for studios to release a game then after 2-3 month they fire 20-30% of the company and hire for the next game release+3-4 month. Or full closure. The Project time workers.
With the amount of cash these consultants charge, not selling enough of your game will really bottom out fast.
Ya, I played the demo for this game. Was sad to see it on the SBI list. It'd have to be very compelling to overcome my bias.
As sad as the news of the studio having layoffs after their debut title, I hope this is a clear message and a warning to other game devs and studios. Still, I don’t think this will be the only case of this happening, unfortunately
It's not sad news, it's super happy news. I'm DELIGHTED. I am laughing as they're getting fired 😂 Just like THEY would laugh if you were homeless, because they hate people who don't think exactly like them. You think mostly like them but have one different thought? They still hate you. And I hate them with a burning passion too. And I'm a guy who wears dresses. But I'm not a disgusting woke bigot.
I don't ever know what a Zouw is.
Seeing games with mythology beyond Englishlands should be a great thing...
But then THIS happens
Babylon Bee did a skit on this.
Video opens with discussion about "peak player count" for a single player game.
Man, I'd love for Matt McMuscles to cover the backstory of this game
Sweetvbaby inc kills yet another studio.
It's already impossible to understand why big devs pay people to ruin their games, but why would you as an Indie? At least the AAA ones are burning money they have.
That SBI budget could have been used to hire experienced Metroidvania players to test the game instead.
Lets not forget, the developer started attacking ppl too, that also factors in poor sale
Wait, this game is already out? It been out since April? Every single time this game crossed my path, it was "upcoming" or "In development" and now I find out the game was already released in all but one of those instants(and it was the one where the reporter was actually playing the game while the others were talking over canned pr footage). I was thinking this was coming out in winter or some shit.
Sweet Baby Inc.: And another one bites the dust! And another one down, and another one down!
Well this is a lesson that should be taken with value but probably not.
Sounds like it had bad marketing.
I remember the first time I saw the trailed and thought that looks good. I love MetroidVania games, but this game had stronger competitors. The other bad thing is that the only advertising for this game that I saw was the involvement of SBI. That’s how I remembered the existence of this game. Bad or good is still advertising, but SBI is a killer advertisement.
Sweet Baby Inc.: The place where games go to die.
Wasn't the head honcho for ZAU employed by Sweet Baby before?
More like studio executives made a bunch of bad decisions, completely tone deaf and never listen while boasting an open door policy. Then they heard that AAA studio executives are getting ESG money so they board the SBI train, which turns out to be the last nail in the coffin, so these executives decide to screw the staff over just to keep themselves afloat until they find the next gig. Very typical game industry executive behaviour.
Each day, I'm finding myself more and more willing to dive into inreal 5, and make my own anti-woke game...
I'll be honest, I did not know this game existed until yesterday. Maybe instead of hiring Sweet Baby Inc, they should have hired a better ad agency.