The accusations began around the release of Spider-Man 2 last October. More came when Alan Wake II hit a week later. They were all over the replies to the social media accounts of Sweet Baby Inc.: hateful comments, many of which hinged on the idea that the Montreal-based narrative development and consulting company was responsible for the “wokeification” of video games, recalls Kim Belair, the company’s CEO.
In the months following, the noise only increased. “You made this character Black, or you added these gay characters, or you ruined the story,” Belair says of the comments, the tone of which, she adds, never changed. Neither have the demands of the people behind them. “It’s usually, ‘leave the industry,’” Belair says, or admit there’s truth to wild conspiracy theories about being involved with investment company BlackRock. (Sweet Baby is not.) Or, more succinctly: “Die.”
Online, those clamoring for Sweet Baby’s demise are calling it Gamergate 2.0, invoking the online harassment campaign that erupted into a culture war a decade ago. Gamergate formalized the playbook for online harassment used by hate groups and the far right; it inspired figures who would later tap into that outrage and rise all the way to positions of power, such as chief strategist in the White House. The two movements do share a handful of similarities: harassment campaigns flooded with falsehoods and accusations bordering on conspiracy; attacks aimed primarily at women and people of color; the idea that video game culture for cis white men is being stolen from them.
“People want to believe that our work is surgically removing the things that they would have liked. ‘Change this line, make this line less racist,’” she says. “That's just not the reality of it.”
It’s no coincidence that the campaign against Sweet Baby is taking place during a contentious election year. “Large-scale harassment campaigns like this fuel—and are fueled by—political events,” reads a statement from the mental health nonprofit Take This, whose research director, Rachel Kowert, is an expert on extremism and radicalization in video games. “As political rhetoric heats up ahead of the US presidential election later this year, this kind of online activity is going to ramp up and it’s important to understand that these phenomena are interrelated.”
Media Matters reports that platforms like YouTube and 4chan have already become rallying points for what users hope to turn into this second Gamergate, asking if their fellows are “ready for the Second Great War.” Elon Musk, owner of X and one of the richest men in the world, has retweeted a post claiming “Gamergate 2 is underway,” while Libs of TikTok—a far right account that regularly targets LGBTQ+ people, inspiring vicious harassment of individuals and bomb threats against schools and hospitals—is currently targeting a former Sweet Baby developer, who has since gone on to another studio, for speaking about creating a safe environment for a team of color.
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