Journalist Bryant Francis, who writes for Game Developer, attempted to use the outlet’s influence to get Valve, the owner of Steam, to shut down the Sweet Baby Inc. Detected curator list at the behest of Sweet Baby Inc. CEO Kim Belair.
A screenshot from South of Midnight (TBA), Compulsion Games
Sweet Baby Inc. Detected is a Steam Curator list that compiles and tracks all games that consulting firm Sweet Baby Inc. has worked on and that are available to purchase on Steam. The list currently boasts over 258,000 followers. It also has 16 games on the list and has them all marked as “Not Recommended.”
The list includes: Tales of Kenzera: Zau, Neo Cab, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Afterlove EP, Gotham Knights, South of Midnight, Kingdom Eighties, Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew, Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance, Hyper Light Breaker, Breeze in the Clouds, Goodbye Volcano High, Usual June, Battle Shapers, Sable, and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.
The Suicide Squad in Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League (2024), Rocksteady
The list gained notoriety when Sweet Baby Inc. employees Chris Kindred and Maya Kramer attempted to cancel not only the list, but the Brazilian gamer behind it, KabrutusRambo.
Kindred posted on X, “The Steam curator harassment group Sweet Baby Inc detected is lead by this person, kabrutusrambo. Here’s them trying to be slick so they don’t get reported. Even with the discriminatory language filed off, the group itself still fails the code of conduct.”
Chris Kindred on X
Next, Kindred wrote, “anyway report the f*** out of this group.”
Chris Kindred on X
Finally, Kindred concluded, “And report the creator since he loves his account so much.”
Chris Kindred on X
READ: Sweet Baby Inc. Employee Who Tried To Cancel Gamer Over Boycott List Gets X Account Limited
Kramer, using the handle legobutts on X wrote, “sorry no one thing has changed: the number of people who understand that spreading misinformation just lets them be racist in public with no consequence has increased dramatically. that has changed. probably requires some fighting from those with authority! probably. :(”
Legobutts on X
She then made it clear she was talking about Sweet Baby Inc. detected, “for example, Steam doesn’t have guidelines for curators (as far as i can tell) that would prevent someone from starting a curation group that focuses on, say, SweetBabyInc and…warns people to not buy games they’re associated with? which could just list any game at all??”
Legobutts on X
The initial cancel campaign failed with KabrutusRambo reporting on March 7th, “It is with great pride that I say: BASED VALVE! Thank you Valve for respecting your players freedom of choice, and also thank you LORD GABE for bulding such an amazing platform for us. WE ARE HERE TO STAY!”
It is with great pride that I say: BASED VALVE!
Thank you @valvesoftware for respecting your players freedom of choice, and also thank you LORD GABE for bulding such an amazing platform for us.
WE ARE HERE TO STAY! pic.twitter.com/A03e3TQwgL
— Kabrutus (@kabrutusrambo) March 8, 2024
READ: Sweet Baby Inc. CEO And Co-Founder Kim Belair Compares White Male Gamers To Picky Babies
Now, Sweet Baby Inc. CEO Kim Belair has launched a second attempt and is using journalist Bryant Francis and Game Developer to cancel KabrutusRambo and his Steam curator list.
Francis penned an article that was published at Game Developer titled “Why are Valve and Discord permitting harassment against Sweet Baby Inc.?” The article’s headline on its face is utterly ridiculous given it was Sweet Baby Inc. who launched the harassment campaign against KabrutusRambo and the Steam Curator list.
Nevertheless, Francis and those like him will likely argue that any criticism of Sweet Baby Inc. is “harassment,” it’s how individuals who write headlines such as this one operate. They lie, lie, and lie some more.
Screenshot from Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew (2023), Minimi Games
In fact, the entire article appears based on unsubstantiated claims from Sweet Baby Inc. CEO Kim Belair that her company is being harassed. Francis wrote, “In an interview with Game Developer Sweet Baby Inc. CEO Kim Belair said the harassment they’ve been experiencing started bubbling in October 2023, around the release of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and Alan Wake 2, with the worst hate coming from users on 4chan, Kiwifarms, and Twitter (Twitter was “the worst” until recently, she noted).”
He adds, “In the last few weeks however, the harassment grew stronger after the groups spun up a Steam Curation Page and Discord server to organize and spread their conspiracy theories.”
A screenshot from Usual June (2025), Finji
Later in his article, Francis again confirmed this entire piece was seemingly written at the behest of Sweet Baby Inc. to cancel the Steam curator list and its Discord channel.
He stated, “Belair admitted she isn’t entirely sure how Valve or Discord should remedy the situation. She and her colleagues at Sweet Baby Inc aren’t experts in online moderation—they’re writers. Their job is to create fictional problems in video games, not solve real ones.”
“She urged Valve and Discord to recognize that harassment campaigns are continuously evolving, and that communications platforms need to keep pace with how they’re being used to spread hate,” he said.
Screenshot from Tales of Kenzera: ZAU (2024), Surgent Studios
Belair, for her part, said, “It’s clear that some kind of evolution is needed, because this will only get bigger, and I don’t mean for us.”
She added, “If this playbook can work as well now as it did 10 years ago [with Gamergate], it’s going to keep working in certain ways, and they will find something bigger and worse to do than this.”
Kim Belair via GDC YouTube
Francis later exposed the entire purpose of the article, to get Sweet Baby Inc. Detected shut down and kicked off Discord.
He wrote, “The steps both companies have taken to moderate these groups appear to have had some effect, but allowing them to remain online serves the organizers’ overarching purpose: recruiting “normies” with little knowledge of game development to capitalize on their anger and channel them into directing hate speech toward Sweet Baby Inc. and anyone else pressing for inclusivity in video games and beyond.”
“If those loopholes aren’t closed, those bad actors will have learned they can target other developers, and this will be the beginning of another massive hate campaign that will leave our industry and its people worse for wear,” he concluded.
Screenshot from Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (2022), Ubisoft Montreal
Francis also confirmed on X, “We reached out to Valve and Discord multiple times to ask how a group using their platform to target a company was within the bounds of their terms of service. No answer back yet.”
Bryant Francis on X
Not only does Francis expose his entire article as a push from Sweet Baby Inc. to get the Steam curator list shut down, but Kotaku writer Alyssa Mercante hinted that this is part of a playbook to deflect from their own actions.
She wrote, “Despite the intensity of the backlash over the past few weeks, it’s business as usual for Sweet Baby Inc. The companies they work with haven’t been scared off—they’ve actually offered advice and best practices for how to move forward, practices they have developed after facing harassment of their own, Belair tells me.”
Venom in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 (2023), Insomniac Games
What do you make of Sweet Baby Inc. launching another attempt to cancel Sweet Baby Inc. Detected?
They are all pieces of shit!
And accomplish what? He made a CURATOR list. Are we not allowed to not recommend games? If they didn’t give it any press, it wouldn’t have gotten a quarter of a million followers. Even if steam were to remove it, someone could just make a “sbi featured” list that would serve the same purpose.
The backlash and the desperate attempts at censorship are just an indicator that Kabrutus struck a nerve. The journos and other SJW activists will do everything in their power to silence the opposition.