Hobbies – Page 12 – Ms. Bella's World

3–5 minutes

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.

3–5 minutes

Back in 1993, a small gaming company was created under the name of Condor. If you’ve never heard of them, you’re not alone. They mainly did game ports, such as The Justice League Task Force (1995) for the Mega Drive/Genesis and NFL Quarterback Club 96 for the GameBoy and Game Gear. To say their early days weren’t anything to write home about would probably be an understatement.

However, that would change when the company was bought by Blizzard Entertainment. The newly acquired and renamed Blizzard North would go on to produce the iconic game, Diablo, nine months later.

My introduction to the world of aRPGs was with Diablo. Just 25 when the game came out, I had no computer then that could run anything more strenuous than solitaire or perhaps Doom. However, I was determined to try out this game, with its dark setting and story.

Fortunately for me, my partner at the time had a habit of keeping his older computer parts when he upgraded them. So, one day I gathered up all of the extra parts and the knowledge I’d gleaned from watching him work on his own machine. By the time he’d returned home from his job at a computer store, I was in the process of installing Windows. After looking over my build for errors, he declared I’d done good work and I wouldn’t be burning the house down anytime soon.

I was thrilled that I’d managed that. But I was more excited for the end result – entering the world of Sanctuary for the first time to help the beleaguered residents of Tristram in their fight against the encroaching evil rising from beneath their town.

To that end, I loaded up the game and hit play. After an awe-inspiring intro cinematic I got to the start screen. Three potential characters awaited my choice. Who would I play? The strong and loyal Warrior? The sly and nimble Rogue perhaps? Or the scholarly but powerful Sorcerer?

I elected to start with the Warrior, a character who would prove a staunch ally to the terrified residents. They weren’t certain what was going on. All they could really tell me was they were under attack by foul creatures coming from deep under the ruined Tristram Cathedral.

Down we went to discover the interior of the cathedral teeming with demons and undead. The further in we got, the more we learned about what was really going on and what the cathedral was built on. And, by the time we’d reached the final boss, we had learned a grim tale of grief, madness, and despair that would have long term consequences for all of Sanctuary.

For the cathedral had been built upon the ruins of a monastery, one whose purpose had long been forgotten by mortal men. It had been there that one of the three Lords of Hell, trapped within a soulstone by the Horadrim, had been buried. That Lord was Diablo, Lord of Destruction.

And in the long eons since his capture, Diablo had been plotting his revenge. He manipulated the cathedral’s archbishop, Lazarus, making him a loyal servant. He attempted to possess King Leoric, who’d ordered the cathedral built. Then, when that failed, he had Lazarus kidnap the king’s son, Prince Albrecht. Leoric, blaming the townspeople for his son’s disappearance, went insane and his knights were forced to kill him, but not before the King cursed them to serve him in their undeath.

By the end of the game, the hero who found himself entangled in the horrors facing Tristram defeated Diablo and removed the soulstone from the now lifeless prince. And, in what I thought was a shocking end, plunged the stone into his own forehead to contain the demon within.

With the gripping story and the challenging but fun dungeon crawling, it’s little wonder that the game sold 1 million copies in less than a year. And with the addition of the expansion, Hellfire, we got two additional areas added to the dungeons, as well as a new class – the monk. And yes, I did play them all, as well as several characters from Unearthed Arsenal, an unauthorized expansion by MicroStar, featuring new items, a variety of edited characters, and a character editor.

While today Diablo falls far short of modern day gaming standards, it was an exciting introduction to the genre of aRPGs and a taste of what was to come in the next installment – Diablo II.

Did you ever play Diablo and, if so, what is you favorite memory of the game? Leave a comment below, I’d love to hear about it.

Until next time, by for now.