Over the years, Sweet Baby has become a target of disdain for many gamers because the company uses its consultant role to promote their ideology within games.
SIE's first-party title Marvel's Wolverine is the latest AAA game to hire Sweet Baby as "consultants," reportedly aiming to be as streamlined, diverse, and accessible as possible. However, due to poor character design and gameplay mechanics, the game ultimately sparked significant controversy.
Daniel Vávra, co-founder of Polish developer Warhorse Studios and director of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, criticized Sweet Baby following these developments, stating that hiring Sweet Baby for services was like "asking a janitor to perform brain surgery," purely amateurs guiding professionals.
On social media, user @ALegendaryDrops tweeted to question Sweet Baby serving as "consultants": "Seriously, I have a question: why does a game telling a story about a man in an exoskeleton made of fictional metal, living in a fictional version of the real world and facing fictional events, need cultural consultants? And two of them? This game has a $300 million budget."
In response, Kingdom Come: Deliverance director Daniel Vávra said, "The same goes for the question below. I even looked into who these 'narrative consultants' actually are, and I really can't understand it: why would anyone hire such people as 'story consultants' for a game with a budget as high as $300 million? This person's only writing credit is as an 'additional writer' on a pixel-art game that blends tower defense with synthwave elements. The plot of that game basically boils down to 'protect the town from the embodiment of greed.' With a resume like that, how could they be hired to provide story advice for a $300 million-level game?
Especially since this person claimed in a speech: "Proving that spaces without white people can exist is where excellent stories are most easily born." They also mentioned that they came here to "burn down the entire gaming industry." They even believe that "Tarantino's works truly need to be criticized until they are completely erased from history."
Another consultant has a degree in marketing, and yet another's original creative work consists of just three amateur short stories. What's going on? How can someone enter a company without formal relevant education, corresponding experience, or even a noteworthy portfolio, to guide those with rich experience and far greater talent in AAA titles, telling them what to do? These games have budgets reaching hundreds of millions of dollars.
It's like asking a janitor to perform brain surgery. Why? What's the logic here?
Not to mention, most of the games they consulted on ended up being commercial disasters. Why is this happening? What's the logic behind it?"