The long-defunct developer gossip hub Fat Babies highlights the industry’s progress and where it’s still lagging behind

Editor’s Note: This story was written before the Internet Archive suffered a massive DDOS attack, and links to archive.org are not currently working. Check back later to delve deep into the Fat Babies archives for yourself.

Hello dear readers. Chris is off for a well-deserved rest this month, leaving the pilot seat free for me to come in and steer the good ship Patch notes. Today we’re taking a strange journey through the history of game development.

I was working on a completely unrelated story a few weeks ago when a source I was speaking to casually asked me, “You remember ‘Fat Babies,’ right?”

Fat babies? The name was so outlandish that for a moment I thought I was being harassed. But no. I muddled through The Internet Archive and discovered that there was actually a game developer gossip hub called Fat Babies that was incredibly unhinged.

How else could I describe it? Where would you find a website in 2024 where bloggers spread industry gossip, developers argue heatedly in forums, and website hosts regularly take digs at Democrats? The site appears to have been created in late 1999, meaning Game Developer (née Gamasutra) was already active at that point, but that was a whole different beast. Part Perez Hilton, part 4chan, part job board, this was a site entirely of its time.

“Our goal is to be the premier site for gaming gossip,” wrote anonymous contributor “FatSlicky,” whose true identity remains unknown.

“We have a number of industry ‘insiders’ eager to share their gaming news here – from delayed release schedules, canceled projects, budget overruns, internal team conflicts, to key hires and firings.”

However, head to the Thoughts section of the site and you’ll see why developers like Playable Worlds co-founder Raph Koster have “bad memories” of Fat Babies. In an email to Game Developer, he explained that a website employee targeted him and turned to his colleagues looking for “dirt” and later posted personal attacks on his character. “I got a bunch of emails from colleagues saying, ‘Fatbabies sucks, you’re not like that,'” he said, emphasizing that the site’s toxicity doesn’t affect everyone in the video game industry.

It’s not hard to dig up other malicious messages shared by the site’s operators – some come from the forums (which were not kept by The Archive) and give us a snapshot of what some of the gossip looked like. Contributor “FatMamaCita”’s attacks on designers like Ion Storm level designer Stevie Case seem particularly disgusting now that she is told her story about the sexism that drove them out of business.

But despite all the dissatisfaction, Fat Babies was a rare source for developers to learn about the industry from other developers. “We had no way to stay in touch – there were no subreddits, social media leaks, Linkedin, Blind, no places for insiders to talk or share information anonymously,” recalled Scott Hartsman, former CEO of Wargaming and Sony Interactive Entertainment. “There was no such thing as ambient internet information.”

The Rumors tab is home to tons of single-source rumors, many of which have not aged well. That’s because they either turned out to be untrue or because they smacked of drive-by racism. It is also the tab that documents a wave of layoffs at companies like Sierra Online, Electronic Arts, Eidos, etc. There’s a good chance that this was the only way for some developers to learn about such news – and Hartsman said sometimes it’s the only way to find out more about what’s going on at your own employer.

Imagine being a worker at Westwood and having the chance to see something your boss’s emails discuss why they fire “younger or weaker members of the team.” Access to such information would certainly make the toxicity bearable for some readers, wouldn’t it?

Developers like Trevor Stricker of Pixel Disco told me that they remember thinking Fat Babies was brilliant at first. “It felt like someone else saw through the bullshit and the release [the rumors] felt heroic.”

But he, like many others we spoke to, was disillusioned by the personal attacks on developers. He recalled reading an article about Visual Concepts founder Greg Thomas that made him see Fat Babies in a different light. “My opinion started to change [the writer] used his anonymity as a bully pulpit just to vilify. He just hated everyone and everything, but…why? It was indeed a fruitful time for the industry. All this guy had to offer was bile.

I admit that I took up speedrunning because of Thomas’ experience. The first time I clicked through Fat Babies, my jaw dropped to the floor. Old gossip! Trashy blogs! Random comments about the Iraq War protesters being paid off by the Democrats! Tragedy plus time equals comedy, and boy, there was plenty of time to find the comedy.

But when I dug up the ruins of Fat Babies, I saw all of the games industry’s well-known damaging flaws exposed by its employees. The low wages, the crisis stories, the sexism, the racism, the homophobia… it’s easy to see what Case meant when she wrote to FatMamaCita: “And people wonder why there aren’t more girls in this industry .”

The gaming industry is now much more diverse, much more inclusive, and far more likely to push back against the attitudes found at Fat Babies. Games journalism has become more robust, and our colleagues at Polygon, IGN and GameSpot are now as capable of producing in-depth reports as previews and reviews, reducing the need for pub gossip.

But progress is not linear. Minorities in the industry are still doing well…minorities, as gender and racial equity in pay and employment is still a distant dream. Women and LGBTQ developers are still at risk of harassment in and out of the workplace, and companies like Star Citizen developer Cloud Imperium Games are reportedly affected Let developers work 7 days a week. Developers spreading workplace gossip and chat logs to antagonize colleagues from an online horde is a phenomenon that is still present.

There is plenty of time to lose all the progress you have made. If there’s anything we learn from the ruins of this once-well-known site, it’s that we could easily return to this world.

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A big thank you to Tom Regan for taking over our AM News slot while Chris travels abroad. He’s picked up a number of notable stories this week that you should definitely check out.

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