EA Wants AI Bad, Sweet Baby Inc Drama, Xbox Partner Preview, + More! - GameLinked Mar 7, 2024

JakobRush · March 7

NEWS SOURCES:

EAI

EA wants to get into generative AI during speaking event

https://techraptor.net/gaming/news/ea-hopes-to-use-generative-ai-to-drive-more-monetization-and-make-development-30-more

60% of development could be “impacted by generative AI” https://www.gamedeveloper.com/production/ea-ceo-60-percent-of-dev-processes-could-be-impacted-by-generative-ai-

Could make company 30% more efficient https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/ea-says-generative-ai-could-make-it-30-more-efficient-and-boost-monetisation-by-up-20-over-5-years/

Says it will drive MTX sales, get games made faster after laying off 670 people https://www.gamespot.com/articles/ea-says-ai-will-drive-microtransaction-sales-help-games-get-made-faster-no-comment-on-human-impact/1100-6521669/

CEO Andrew Wilson says company devs are excited about this https://lmg.gg/yyEaj (VGC)

Even though he had previously stated AI advancements would lead to job losses https://lmg.gg/6HIRy (GameSpot)

Says it in a quote here https://www.ign.com/articles/ea-ceo-video-games-will-be-one-of-the-greatest-beneficiaries-of-ai

In every revolution “there has been displacement of the workforce in the near term, and then meaningful increases in workforce opportunities over the longer term.”

Believes can increase player base by 50% and spending by 10-20% https://lmg.gg/V51uJ (TechRaptor)

Starts getting weirder https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/ea-ceo-talks-ai-says-the-usual-stuff-before-the-bong-rip-hits-and-he-starts-blabbing-about-a-future-where-3-billion-people-are-creating-eas-games-with-it/

“3 billion players around the world” will make content for them https://lmg.gg/vvINT (PC Gamer)

“multi-billion dollar opportunity” for EA https://lmg.gg/eWsVf (PC Gamer)

BITTERSWEET BABY

Kotaku releases report on Sweet Baby Inc

https://kotaku.com/sweet-baby-inc-consulting-games-alan-wake-2-dei-1851312428

blew up when some company employees got wind of a steam curator which games Sweet baby had worked on https://store.steampowered.com/curator/44858017/

at least one employee encouraged mass flagging of the steam profile of curator https://nichegamer.com/sweet-baby-employees-incite-harassment-campaign-against-steam-curator/

Sweet baby has said some kind of alarming stuff, like this small snipped from a half hour presentation where co-founder Kim Belair advises terrifying the marketing team to “get what you want”, https://youtu.be/GfMsxjWgUbI?t=1527

Starts accusations that company is here for cancelling games

Developers have come out in defense of Sweet Baby https://www.eurogamer.net/spider-man-alan-wake-ridiculous-fishing-devs-speak-up-in-support-of-consultancy-studio-sweet-baby-inc

Alan Wake 2 director had to dispel rumors that black co-protagonist would have been white if not for Sweet Baby https://twitter.com/TimePirateNinja/status/1764697135344202183

Inde dev Rami Ismail states consultants are advisory, easily eliminated https://twitter.com/tha_rami/status/1765505282417840638

Associate narrative director at Insomniac games Mary Kenney states studios get final say https://twitter.com/marykanpie/status/1765390600621207800

Having SAID that, in the same presentation Belair discusses a Dating Simulator where SHE saw a chance to represent women who had been victimized via a line of dialogue https://youtu.be/GfMsxjWgUbI?t=550

The devs instead took out the dialogue altogether and thanked her because she “mitigated the risk” https://youtu.be/GfMsxjWgUbI?t=621

Belair claims to Kotaku that they do more than just DEI https://lmg.gg/OL3WA (Kotaku)

Feels that detractors “can’t imagine” that she did story work on Spider-Man, wasn’t “adding pride flags” https://lmg.gg/PYlrV (Kotaku)

PREVIEWTIFUL

Xbox Partner Showcase

https://youtu.be/z_Uq92iY0Io

Bunch of announcements https://www.gameinformer.com/xbox-partner-preview/2024/03/06/everything-announced-at-todays-xbox-partner-preview

Sinking City 2 in development https://youtu.be/VN5voXpAd0I

after long legal battle https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/frogwares-regain-control-of-the-sinking-city-but-all-old-saves-will-break-soon

First 3 STALKER games shadow-dropped on Xbox https://youtu.be/-MO-ZDMBVqk

Frostpunk 2 https://youtu.be/KF7z5TDeQFc

Sleight of Hand https://youtu.be/YVd4bEiiCIU