It was only the other day that we learned that Square Enix veteran Tetsuya Nomura (who has been involved in practically everything expensive the studio has done in the last 30 years) believes we shouldn’t have to play as ugly characters in video games.
A statement that goes against much of today’s game development, which instead often seems to strive to be as inclusive as possible, rather than offering the most attractive protagonists. One company that specialises in this is Sweet Baby Inc, whose mission is to consult game developers to promote diversity, equity and inclusion (often abbreviated as DEI).
Their work can be seen in several titles and among the developers who have collaborated with them are Square Enix (Forspoken), Remedy (Alan Wake 2) and Santa Monica Studio (God of War: Ragnarök). Now, however, it seems that Square Enix has ended the collaboration for unknown reasons, and on Reddit it is noted that the company’s logo is no longer visible among Sweet Baby Inc’s clients.
We don’t know why, but several big games Sweet Baby Inc has been involved in have missed sales targets in recent years, while developers who haven’t gone that route have enjoyed games that performed much better. Good examples of the latter are Black Myth: Wukong and Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine II, whose developers in interviews completely rejected the idea of having an explicit DEI agenda.
Was this a good move from Square Enix or will it cost them in the end?
Thanks, NeoGaf.