The SBI extortion Saga in a nutshell

[m0gi]

[allegedly Game Science Rejected a 7,000,000 Dollar contract from Sweet Baby Inc. when being probed for DEI consultation for their first ever video game (BLACK MYTH WUKONG).]

As a response to this rejection of their service. an IGN journalist (Rebekah Valentine) dropped 3 seperate hit pieces on X about Game Science. Claiming that Game Science is a Sexist company. However these hit pieces contain maliciously mistranslated tweets that were meant to paint Game Science in a negative way.

To further fuel the fire, ScreenRant and Gamespot additionally doubled down in their reviews of BMW, referencing IGN's Hit piece on Game Science.

Ladies (probably) and Gentleman.

This is a clear Smear campaign from IGN against GS. As we know now. It failed miserably with Wukong hitting a Peak Player Count of 2.3 million players, in its first few opening days.

What are your thoughts about it? Is there news I missed?

this was gonna be steam review when it dropped (but I edited slightly for discussion)

I feel I need to point out the weird backstory this game has garnered in the west

if anyone wants to translate to chinese, I'll pin.

Additionally here is the post from Pirate Nation that claims SBI attempted to Extort from GS. (credits to eric.) this is the most we as a collective could find on whether they even did this or not. It is the leading story and it hardly works as proof. but thats what we have.
https://x.com/Pirat_Nation/status/1801457411305210241

I found the hit piece on Game Science: it is real. (rebekah has since removed her name from it)
https://www.ign.com/articles/how-black-myth-wukong-developers-history-of-sexism-is-complicating-its-journey-to-the-west

[Ninja Lord]

Originally posted by m0gi:

Game Science Rejected a 6,000,000 Dollar contract from Sweet Baby Inc. when being probed for DEI consultation for their first ever video game (BLACK MYTH WUKONG).

As a response to this rejection of their service. an IGN journalist dropped 3 seperate hit pieces on X about Game Science. Claiming that Game Science is a Sexist company. However these hit pieces contain maliciously mistranslated tweets that were meant to paint Game Science in a negative way.

To further fuel the fire, ScreenRant and Gamespot additionally doubled down in their reviews of BMW, referencing IGN's Hit piece on Game Science.

Ladies (probably) and Gentleman.

This is what you call a Wildly Obvious Grift from Bad Actors that runs so deep in the industry that it's become a larger problem then people care to admit.

What are your thoughts about it? Is there news I missed?

That's pretty much it - It's all over Youtube as well which where I first found out about this.

[Ninja Lord]

There are DEI and Woke activism in these threads - though by few actors - not that many. There are also other political issues as well from anti-Communism activism and Pro-China sentiments as well going back and forth. Sometimes they overlap and tangle with each other making a nasty toxic stew for a community.

Honestly I came in here only wanting to talk about the game itself, the story and the designs that make Wukong - but I got sucked up into this toxic environment instead.

[Lilly]

Huh, why is it that they can claim to call out sexism yet they can't define what a woman is?

[GroovyHobo]

The first gamergate barely scratched the surface of journo corruption. Second one is barely scratching the surface of how financing firms use extortion to force certain ideologies. SBI is only one of many that do this. I guarantee you it goes much deeper than this.

[Firmamento]

Originally posted by Lilly:

Huh, why is it that they can claim to call out sexism yet they can't define what a woman is?

Right? How can the dev even be sexist if they are identifying as non-gendered cactus? I don't see any articles on IGN where they even reached out to and got a response from the person said to have said the sexist remarks to even confirm their gender identity. Did IGN just assume the devs gender?

[Baker]

Originally posted by Lilly:

Huh, why is it that they can claim to call out sexism yet they can't define what a woman is?

They also seem to think no females would want to play this type of game.
That no females would be interested or could have fun playing a game like this, so therefore anyone who is interested in this game must be an incel.
That is kind of the stereotyping that they accuse the DEVs of doing.

[FreshRevenge]

Originally posted by m0gi:

Game Science Rejected a 6,000,000 Dollar contract from Sweet Baby Inc. when being probed for DEI consultation for their first ever video game (BLACK MYTH WUKONG).

As a response to this rejection of their service. an IGN journalist dropped 3 seperate hit pieces on X about Game Science. Claiming that Game Science is a Sexist company. However these hit pieces contain maliciously mistranslated tweets that were meant to paint Game Science in a negative way.

To further fuel the fire, ScreenRant and Gamespot additionally doubled down in their reviews of BMW, referencing IGN's Hit piece on Game Science.

Ladies (probably) and Gentleman.

This is what you call a Wildly Obvious Grift from Bad Actors that runs so deep in the industry that it's become a larger problem then people care to admit.

What are your thoughts about it? Is there news I missed?

What's interesting about this, is that there are no other outlets that have any proof of the claims that IGN posted about. And what IGN has is pretty narrow and incomplete. A mistranslation at best. Yet they demanded Gamescience a response. And all the other woke outlets like ScreenRant, The Gamer, Kotaku all jumped on to smear this game.

If SBI approach Gamescience to work on the game, and Gamescience refuse to work with them. SBI have made claims in the past that it wouldn't good for them. Pretty much extortion. There is a video that shows Kim Belair talking about terrifying their marketing team.

At one point IGN was respectable, they were a source of game information and news but they took the money from activists, I am sure they get support from ESG or LGBT organization etc. They are now filled with social political activists that are destroying the gamiing industry.

I am going to playing the game. And the people complaining about it are going to eventually give up and move on.

I remember the controversy with Hogwarts Legacy. Every trans activist or ally was attacking those that wanted to play the game. Just because J.K Rowling doesn't believe a man is a woman. Well get in line. Most of the majority of the earth population doesn't believe that men are women.

[masii07]

Originally posted by m0gi:

Game Science Rejected a 6,000,000 Dollar contract from Sweet Baby Inc. when being probed for DEI consultation for their first ever video game (BLACK MYTH WUKONG).

As a response to this rejection of their service. an IGN journalist dropped 3 seperate hit pieces on X about Game Science. Claiming that Game Science is a Sexist company. However these hit pieces contain maliciously mistranslated tweets that were meant to paint Game Science in a negative way.

To further fuel the fire, ScreenRant and Gamespot additionally doubled down in their reviews of BMW, referencing IGN's Hit piece on Game Science.

Ladies (probably) and Gentleman.

This is what you call a Wildly Obvious Grift from Bad Actors that runs so deep in the industry that it's become a larger problem then people care to admit.

What are your thoughts about it? Is there news I missed?

(edit)

this was gonna be steam review when it dropped (but I edited slightly for discussion)

I feel I need to point out the wierd backstory this game has garnered in the west

if anyone wants to translate to chinese, I'll pin.

In nutshell - NOT CONFIRMED. IT'S ALL RUMOURS.

NO evidence this ever happened, this sounds like smear campaign against SBI.

Any court would dismiss this if this was evidence. Paper thin.

[Serra]

At this point i see it as a positive, when a certain group wants to smear/cancel something.
It pretty much tells you, that you can spend your money, without running into this forced DEI nonsense.
Also who cares about the opinion of these "journalists", they are a joke.

[Naamtar]

If you're stupid enough to believe there's a company whose business model revolves around extorting clients (let alone for 7 million dollars) to hire them, in an industry as tight knit as gaming, I've got a cool bridge to sell you in the desert.

[Lilly]

Originally posted by Baker:

Originally posted by Lilly:

Huh, why is it that they can claim to call out sexism yet they can't define what a woman is?

They also seem to think no females would want to play this type of game.
That no females would be interested or could have fun playing a game like this, so therefore anyone who is interested in this game must be an incel.
That is kind of the stereotyping that they accuse the DEVs of doing.

This is what I hate about all the forced equality nonsense. They use the excuse of claiming that only they know what female gamers want. And quite frankly it's insulting that they insinuate that it's a self-insert. I don't want a self-insert. I want fun games with great stories and characters, doesn't matter if those characters are male or female, but, I do like traditional gender roles, I like to see a strong male hero, heck, I love The Witcher games because they have both strong men and women without it being silly.

[FreshRevenge]

Originally posted by Naamtar:

If you're stupid enough to believe there's a company whose business model revolves around extorting clients (let alone for 7 million dollars) to hire them, in an industry as tight knit as gaming, I've got a cool bridge to sell you in the desert.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv8ckDqlk3U

I would called that terrorism.

[Naamtar]

Originally posted by FreshRevenge:

Originally posted by m0gi:

Game Science Rejected a 6,000,000 Dollar contract from Sweet Baby Inc. when being probed for DEI consultation for their first ever video game (BLACK MYTH WUKONG).

As a response to this rejection of their service. an IGN journalist dropped 3 seperate hit pieces on X about Game Science. Claiming that Game Science is a Sexist company. However these hit pieces contain maliciously mistranslated tweets that were meant to paint Game Science in a negative way.

To further fuel the fire, ScreenRant and Gamespot additionally doubled down in their reviews of BMW, referencing IGN's Hit piece on Game Science.

Ladies (probably) and Gentleman.

This is what you call a Wildly Obvious Grift from Bad Actors that runs so deep in the industry that it's become a larger problem then people care to admit.

What are your thoughts about it? Is there news I missed?

What's interesting about this, is that there are no other outlets that have any proof of the claims that IGN posted about. And what IGN has is pretty narrow and incomplete. A mistranslation at best. Yet they demanded Gamescience a response. And all the other woke outlets like ScreenRant, The Gamer, Kotaku all jumped on to smear this game.

If SBI approach Gamescience to work on the game, and Gamescience refuse to work with them. SBI have made claims in the past that it wouldn't good for them. Pretty much extortion. There is a video that shows Kim Belair talking about terrifying their marketing team.

At one point IGN was respectable, they were a source of game information and news but they took the money from activists, I am sure they get support from ESG or LGBT organization etc. They are now filled with social political activists that are destroying the gamiing industry.

I am going to playing the game. And the people complaining about it are going to eventually give up and move on.

I remember the controversy with Hogwarts Legacy. Every trans activist or ally was attacking those that wanted to play the game. Just because J.K Rowling doesn't believe a man is a woman. Well get in line. Most of the majority of the earth population doesn't believe that men are women.

The video is from a GDQ seminar, I believe, and it was an off handed joke. You can watch the full thing if you can stomach her beliefs; I don't agree with much of what she has to say, but to say she was serious when she made that comment is just flat out lying.

It's insane to me that there's an entire group of people buying into a made up narrative around SBI that just stems from random people on Twitter (or the equivalent of Twitter in China) and spreading bad information like saying "SBI have made claims in the past that it wouldn't be good for them".

There's no objective place in reality where a business model of "let's extort clients and threaten them with bad press if they don't pay us millions" works. Even Valve is a client of theirs, and Gaben is one of the most business savvy people in the gaming industry. I don't understand how people are gullible enough to believe this stuff, it hurts my head.

[Ninja Lord]

Originally posted by masii07:

Originally posted by m0gi:

Game Science Rejected a 6,000,000 Dollar contract from Sweet Baby Inc. when being probed for DEI consultation for their first ever video game (BLACK MYTH WUKONG).

As a response to this rejection of their service. an IGN journalist dropped 3 seperate hit pieces on X about Game Science. Claiming that Game Science is a Sexist company. However these hit pieces contain maliciously mistranslated tweets that were meant to paint Game Science in a negative way.

To further fuel the fire, ScreenRant and Gamespot additionally doubled down in their reviews of BMW, referencing IGN's Hit piece on Game Science.

Ladies (probably) and Gentleman.

This is what you call a Wildly Obvious Grift from Bad Actors that runs so deep in the industry that it's become a larger problem then people care to admit.

What are your thoughts about it? Is there news I missed?

(edit)

this was gonna be steam review when it dropped (but I edited slightly for discussion)

I feel I need to point out the wierd backstory this game has garnered in the west

if anyone wants to translate to chinese, I'll pin.

In nutshell - NOT CONFIRMED. IT'S ALL RUMOURS.

NO evidence this ever happened, this sounds like smear campaign against SBI.

Any court would dismiss this if this was evidence. Paper thin.

First of there is proof - AND second of all : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8MZBUoQt68

[Ninja Lord]

Originally posted by Naamtar:

If you're stupid enough to believe there's a company whose business model revolves around extorting clients (let alone for 7 million dollars) to hire them, in an industry as tight knit as gaming, I've got a cool bridge to sell you in the desert.

Nice Gaslighting - Here's a counter to your gaslighting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8MZBUoQt68