A Curator List Leads to The Streisand Effect

On January 29th, a small curator page appeared on Steam. It was an innocuous page, created by a gamer for other gamers, to inform anyone interested in the games that Sweet Baby Inc., a consulting firm used by game studios for scripting and writing game stories, had worked on. As someone who likes to keep informed about the gaming world, I subscribed to the list.

Among the games listed under their umbrella were Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance, Gotham Knights, and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. While Valhalla seemed to be doing well, the same couldn’t be said for Suicide Squad. Despite its recent release, it was struggling to hold onto even 800 players.

What went wrong? The majority of negative reviews complained about mediocre storytelling, boring cutscenes, tedious gameplay, and poor performance. Many were appalled by the way beloved heroes were killed off, including the iconic Batman from previous entries in the game series. It sounded like, and still does sound like, a complete trainwreck.

The list of games caught the attention of employees at Sweet Baby Inc., who could have handled it in various ways, such as ignoring its existence or proudly proclaiming that ‘yes, we helped work on these and we stand by them’. Instead, they began a concerted harassment campaign against the curator of the list, a Brazilian man going by the moniker Kabrutus. They tried to get the list banned and him banned from Steam. When that didn’t work, they took to Twitter, throwing fits and involving gaming news websites in an attempt to call out Steam for what they deemed as harassment against the company.

Ironically, they were the ones engaging in harassment, and they continue to do so. They caused so much trouble in the discussion group that Kabrutus took the unusual measure of shutting it down. They also wreaked havoc in the Discord group.

At each step, they brought more attention to this small curator list. As I write this, the list has grown to over 291,000 followers. It seems that the people working at this company had never heard of, or experienced, a phenomenon called ‘The Streisand Effect’.

What is the Streisand Effect?

The Streisand effect refers to the unintended consequence of attempts to hide, remove, or censor information, which instead backfires by increasing public awareness of the information. The term was coined after popular singer Barbara Streisand sued a photographer for $50 million over an aerial photo where her house could be seen. This photo was one of thousands documenting coastal erosion in California.

The lawsuit was dismissed, and Streisand had to pay the photographer’s legal fees. But the damage was done, as a photo that only a handful of people had ever seen would then go on to be seen by hundreds of thousands.

This phenomenon has occurred many times since then, as the internet has become more widely available to people and information is spread far and wide. The most recent occurance of the effect took place in 2023, with the game ‘Hogwart’s Legacy’. A game that would have, undoubtedly, been fairly popular to start with exploded in popularity as people attempted to start a boycott over JK Rowling and her opinions on women’s rights. Despite every attempt to destroy the game, it became one of the most popular streamed games of the year and went on to sell 22 million copies.

It would seem to me that at some point people would learn. The louder you scream, threaten, and attempt to bury something, the more you shine a spotlight on it and the more people will be curious to find out what you’re screaming about. But, once again, that small fact has been lost.

As a result, an obscure list has spread to the wider community. A company has exposed themselves for being the bullies they claim other people are. And now people are calling this ‘Gamergate 2’? No, dear. There is no Gamergate. There are only people tired of being told what they should like and how they should think.

We’re tired of the crap and the schoolyard insults. Just stop it already. You’re absolutely free to hold your own opinions, have your own views of the world, and to make the games, movies, shows, and media, you want. But you do not have the right to expect others to agree with you or open their wallets to products that they feel are poorly written and designed.

If you believe you’re work stands up, then a small list on Steam can’t truly threaten your business and livelihood. If you believe it can, though, then I ask you – how much faith do you have in your company? Not much, from the sounds of things.