Why Gaming is Failing: 3 Reasons Sweet Baby Inc. Got it Wrong

Stop buying $70 "AAAA" titles.

You aren't paying for a game. You are paying for a corporate insurance policy.

I’ve spent fifteen years tracking digital trends and billion-dollar media shifts. I’ve seen industries thrive on risk and die on "safety." Right now, the gaming industry is committing suicide by committee.

The biggest flops of the last three years have one thing in common: They weren't built for players. They were built for consultants.

Sweet Baby Inc. isn't just a company. It’s a symptom of a terminal illness.

Here is why gaming is failing and why the "consultant era" is hitting a dead end.

Creative Vision Cannot Be Outsourced

Art requires a soul. Corporate products require a checklist.

When a studio hires an outside firm like Sweet Baby Inc. to "refine" its narrative, it is making a confession. It is admitting the lead writers have no conviction.

Think about the masterpieces. Elden Ring. The Witcher 3. Baldur’s Gate 3.

These games didn’t have "narrative consultants" auditing their scripts for sensitivity. They had authors with a specific, uncompromising vision. They weren't afraid to offend, to be weird, or to be "incorrect."

Consultancy breeds homogeneity. If five different studios use the same narrative firm, you get five games that feel exactly the same. The dialogue sounds the same. The "inclusive" character beats feel identical.

When you outsource your "voice," you lose your identity. Players can smell a manufactured story from a mile away. They don't want a "safe" experience. They want a human one.

The "Ghost Audience" Fallacy

The industry is designing games for people who do not play them.

Consultants sell a dream to executives. They promise that "modernizing" a story will unlock a "wider audience." It’s a lie.

I’ve looked at the data. The "wider audience" doesn't show up. They don't buy $70 consoles. They don't spend 100 hours in an open world. They engage with the discourse on social media, but they don't open their wallets.

Meanwhile, the core audience—the people who actually fund these $300 million budgets—is being alienated.

You cannot grow a brand by insulting your existing customers. You cannot build a community by prioritizing "representation audits" over gameplay loops.

If you spend more time worrying about the demographics of your NPC cast than you do on your hit detection or your progression system, you have already lost.

Sweet Baby Inc. and its peers focus on the "Message." Players focus on the "Mechanic." In the battle between a lecture and a game, the game always loses.

Risk Mitigation is the Death of Innovation

Modern AAA gaming is too expensive to be creative.

When a game costs $200 million to produce, the executives become terrified. They look for ways to "de-risk" the investment. This is where firms like Sweet Baby Inc. thrive.

Hiring a sensitivity consultant is corporate armor. It’s a way for a CEO to tell the board: "We did everything right. We checked every box. We followed the industry standards for social alignment."

It is a shield against the "Twitter mob."

But "safe" is the most dangerous thing you can be in entertainment. "Safe" is boring. "Safe" is forgettable.

By prioritizing risk mitigation over creative bravery, studios are producing high-fidelity sludge. They are spending hundreds of millions to produce games that have the personality of a HR training manual.

Sweet Baby Inc. got it wrong because they convinced the industry that "sensitivity" is a substitute for "quality." It isn't. You can have the most diverse, sensitive, "correct" game in the world—if it isn’t fun, it’s a failure.

The Insight: The Great De-Leveraging

The tide is turning. We are entering the era of the "Consultant Collapse."

My prediction? Within 24 months, the term "Narrative Consultant" will be toxic in a pitch meeting.

We are seeing a massive shift toward "Author-Driven" development. The success of games like Black Myth: Wukong and Stellar Blade isn't a fluke. It's a signal. These games didn't follow the Western consultant playbook. They stayed true to their specific cultural and creative perspectives.

The Western industry is currently in a "Creative Arbitrage" crisis. They are trading their long-term brand loyalty for short-term social approval.

The winners of the next decade won't be the studios with the best consultants. It will be the studios that fire the consultants and start listening to the players again.

The "AAAA" bubble is popping. The era of the focus-grouped protagonist is over. We are going back to basics: Fun. Challenge. Vision.

The industry doesn't need more "experts" on how to be sensitive. It needs more experts on how to make a game you can't put down.

The CTA

What was the last AAA game you played that actually felt like it had a unique soul?