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Biggest Headache For Game Developers: Abusive Fans
chicksdaddy writes "Haters keep buyin' — that appears to be the dynamic playing out in the ever-hot video game industry, where game developers say harassment and trolling from their rabid fans is turning them off of development completely, according to a report over at Polygon.com. 'Fans are invested in the stories and worlds that developers create, and certain design decisions can be seen by fans to threaten those stories and worlds,' said Nathan Fisk, lecturer at the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and co-author of the book Bullying in the Age of Social Media. 'Harassment silences and repositions content creators in ways that protect the interests of certain fan groups, which again is no justification for the kinds of abusive behavior and language seen online today.' The problem is widespread enough that it may even pose a threat to the future of the industry. Developers, both named and those who wish to remain anonymous, tell Polygon that harassment by gamers is becoming an alarmingly regular expected element of game development. Some developers say the problem was among the reasons they left the industry, others tell Polygon that the problem is so ubiquitous that it distracts them from making games or that they're considering leaving the industry."
Fan groups can get pretty sensitive about sequels and be really unpleasant about it. (I used to follow Fallout forums back in the day before 3; you could do no right)
Perhaps this will push more developers, if not the executives, to push for doing more original games, where you're not "destroying" someones vision of an IP?
I know that this may not grasp the problem entirely, but typically it's best to just not engage the haters. The worst way to deal with them is to flip out back. Often this causes a Streisand Effect and makes more people hate you. I won't say which developer, but after making a showing fit of leaving the industry on twitter, he went on 4chan with a picture of the tweet saying, "Weren't we being too rough on him?" You could see that the picture was from the same account that made the tweet as it had a delete option. That's one way to lose sympathy.
Just like car owners and sports fans, once you spend a certain amount of money on an industry you start getting rather passionate about the subject.
Yes, it is nice if you have the developers actively communicate with the fan base, but many times, those fans that post on forums the most end up making demands, and in many cases don't fully appropriate the fact that the game developers know what they are doing much more so than the fans do.
Blizzard has CMs (community managers) that act as a buffer between the developers and the fan base. They are trained and hired to deal with the various disagreeing opinions, while being able to recognize when there is a clear consensus that is sensible and something the devs should be aware of. Most people know 2 of the developers: Greg Street, who has taken it upon himself to meet this challenge, and Chris Metzen who primarily works on Art, voice, and lore, which people generally don't complain about too much (although it does happen).
I see way too many game companies let their developers just openly communicate with the fan base unbuffered, and they need to take a hint from Blizzard to let the professionals handle it.
So, if devs make horribly awful decisions, the customers are supposed to just take it up the ass? What utter rubbish!
What happened to actually listening to customer feedback? Sure, there are haters, but they can be easily dismissed. If you can't handle a few trolls and criticism, you shouldn't be working in any real job, let alone game development.
"Every time you insult me, Mario loses a finger. Why do you want me to hurt poor Mario?"
It sounds as if game developers are learning what sci-fi/fantasy writers already knew; fans can be rabid and irrational. For most authors this isn't a problem because they sell in the 5 or 6 digits and there may be just one crazy fan. But every AAA video game has millions of players, so the number of crazies can be much larger.
This is why Neil Gaiman was forced to tell people that 'George R. R. Martin is not your bitch.' Because rabid fans wanted GRR to be their bitch, and because he now has such a large audience their harassment was getting out of hand.
The solution to this is to grow a thick skin and/or to get a secretary that will read and filter your mail for you. Or you could make games that only sell 10k-100k units, so the fanbase doesn't reach a critical mass of craziness...but if your company is addicted to money then being a smaller part of the market isn't an option.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
You see stories like this on other topics. They tend to be hyped up. It's a crisis! Won't someone please think of the children!?
Yeah, it's probably a real issue. No, it's probably not a crisis.
Gamers shouldn't have an entitlement mentality. Game developers shouldn't have a victim mentality. People should be nicer to each other.
Can't imagine why when all they do is nerf instead of increasing disfavored classes.
Here is their non-sentient nerf-loop algorithm:
1. Datamine to see most played class/power.
2. Conk it on the head so it sucks more.
3. People start moving to something else in the game.
4. Find what that is and repeat.
Important: Repeat until every player is pissed off and disgusted with your product.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Yes, that's exactly what the article is about and not stuff like:
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=call+of+duty+death+threats
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=bioware+death+threats
STFU, n00bs!
In other words, ignore those kinds of fans: they'll yell and scream and complain, and in the end buy the next version of the game.
I am officially gone from
It's all part of the Eternal September playing a rush to the bottom.
Trolls have discovered there's very little (if any) consequence to them being as obnoxious as possible, and many have come to realise that if you troll and upset people, they can't let it go as well as a well reasoned argument.
Thus, it seems that if you Troll, you get a response, so more people troll, and the more abusive you are, the more attention is paid (and god forbid, someone deletes the abusive post, as that then ends up noted on all the tech blogs that the developer is censoring).
While things are stacked towards letting trolling pay off, I don't think anything's going to change..
Ultimately the number of "votes" you get is proportional to what you spend, not how many hours you play. The most vocal people are not necessarily to most representative, nor the biggest customers.
Some gamers have moved from a perspective of critical approval before purchase, "If it's a good game then I'll get it" to a sense of entitlement, "they owe me a good game".
Run that up against the whole process of finding a game idea, fleshing it out, coding it, adding the art & sound, network support, testing, packaging, marketing and if you are in the business you wonder how you succeed at all.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
A vocal minority without anything constructive to add should be ignored. I don't see the problem here.
This happens less than one-thousandth as often as whiners like you claim it does.
... from the F2P scam, DRM, and taking away peoples ability to own games by making everything F2P or online, where Diablo 3 introduced us to the DEFECT of SINGLE PLAYER LAG. The entire industry at present and the corrupt whiny little bastard game devs (those who are among the corrupt) deserve everything they get.
The Game industry is among the most corrupt on the planet:
-Taking the ability to own and mod games away from players
-Enclosing games by using MMO/F2P server chaining strategy
-F2P/MMO games are locked down and that makes a suffocating environment for fan creativity, mods, hacks, etc, to the original game and more and more games are being completely locked down and gamers being locked out.
Nanny corporation is trying to make people dependent on it in the exact same way as an overbearing totalitarian state would. They want to force a relationship where they continually draw money from people and you never own anything.
This is just more of a trend of game industry not aware of the industry wide corporate corruption that people are getting sick and tired of and the are too oblivious to the justified anger people have at price gouging, bank bailouts, and wars based on lies.
There are more games than World of Warcraft.
Everyone's a bullying victim these days. Le sigh.
Actually, on Free-to-play pay-to-win games, they seem like the most useless demographic.
We are talking about millions of customers. Because of the numbers involved I'm sure that includes beside people who are well ... dead by now also people that pee on themselves, people who have both AIDS and cancer and (gasp) people who leave in a fantasy world that involves running around killing as many people as possible.
Sure, bad mouthing on a forum, sucks. Death threats, sucks much more. But in the end that's it, do your best to prepare for the worst, hope for the best and life goes on (until it doesn't).
But who should be getting the abuse you advocate? The executives of the big publishers or the regular folks working for the industry to actually make games? I've disliked games before but that doesn't mean that I should be justified to spew vitriol at the coders, artists and others working in the industry.
We all know the real problem. It's the fact that while game budgets have SKYROCKETED over the last 20 years, game QUALITY has PLUMETTED over the last 20 years.
Today's video games are soulless, mcdonalds-esque all you can eat buffets of nastiness. In the '90s, if you picked up 5 random games, 4 of them would be great.
Today if you picked up 5 random games, there is a very real possibility that ZERO would be great.
Of course the fans are angry about this, they SHOULD BE. If the "Industry" cant handle it, maybe it should die. Then the Indies will take over and games will have a soul again.
Hyperbolic insults, rants, threats and bullying are commonplace in every type of communication over the internet. The anonymity and pseudo-anonymity enable a culture where there is rarely any significant penalty for even the worst insults.
Gabriel from Penny Arcade really summed it up nicely with his Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory
So everyone is deserving of abusive, sociopathic behavior? Even the indie developers whose team is small?
No. This is about the studios and developers being undeservedly abused and harassed. Not criticism but blatant abuse from immature children masquerading as adults who have no mental capacity for filtering their insane behavior. It's probably the same lack of mental facilities that cause others to abuse women who stand up for themselves.
These are many of the reasons I'm a big fan of Nintendo. They care about the developers, take their time to develop the right product, and don't engage in this microtransaction nonsense. Even with games like Pokémon Rumble U, Nintendo promises that you can see everything there is in the game even if you don't buy their collectible figures. I'm glad Nintendo ignores the investors (iOS!) and the non-Nintendo fans (MMOFPS sports game please!) to make a quality product that doesn't rely on these "shady profits".
By your definition then we should be sending death threats to the authors and people who work at publishing houses if they produce a book you don't like, or produce a book you like but then the main character gets killed at the end,
People like you are why we can't have nice things.
if you can't handle words after the age of 13 then you aren't an adult, you are an old child and don't deserve any of the privileges of adulthood
sticks and stones dudes, don't feed the trolls, post the best hate mail on your website for laughs
you have no right not to be offended
All those evil things you describe; sweatshops, layoffs, buyouts, DLC, lack of innovation are not initiated by the designers and developers, yet those are the people getting harrassed.
This isn't some anonymous "gaming industry" that gets the crap, it's individual people.
Imagine somebody coming up to the counter of whatever supermarket you work at and start verbally abusing you for decissions made by some upper level management people.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Because the entire game industry is EA and Activision, amirite?
Or maybe there's independent devs who just make games out of love of the art and wish they got some basic degree of respect and dignity from their NAAAAAH lol I'm joking of course, anyone who's ever touched a gaming API is a heartless sweatshop owner who rapes children and eats their dogs in front of their faces for profit.
Unfortunately, the abuse is frequently targeted at hapless employees. You can hate bobby kotik all day for the business abuses he engages in, but when people threaten the lives of poorly paid writers for daring to have a philosophy about writing, it's not a good thing.
From the article:
"I could go on and on about this, but I'm just going to consider one example: the word 'noob.' [...] But if you want to get started as a gamer, you get told, 'go home noob,' because people in this hobby hate newcomers so much they turned the word itself into an insult."
Around 13 years ago, I bought a cheap computer and monitor setup so I could install one of the Linux distributions (I forget which) and learn it while keeping it completely separate from my main, Windows computer (which I used partially for work). Everything went fine, except that I could not get the modem (I was still on dialup) to work while logged in as a user, but could while logged in as root. After a fruitless search of any online documentation, I went to three separate Linux communities (on IRC? I honestly don't remember precisely) to see if anyone could help or even point me in the right direction. In all three, I only got insults and mocking, and was based told to go fuck myself if I couldn't figure it out on my own.
So I wiped Linux from the system, sold the whole thing to a buddy who wanted a cheap box to slap Windows on for his kid to play games on, and I haven't touched Linux since. And never will.
no this is exactly how it works, and anybody who thinks otherwise is naive as hell
"Harassment silences and repositions content creators in ways that protect the interests of certain fan groups."
s/Harassment/Management/
the only difference being management butters the bread so content creators dont have a problem eviscerating a beloved storyline. There have been plenty of times when content creators have just sold the fuck out and decided their fans were worth less than gobs of cash. Im looking directly at you, Westwood studios. conversely, studios like 3drealms had no problem ignoring trolls and abusive fans while they spent through the cash and coasted into bankruptcy. What did we get? some studio standing at the auction block waiting to inheret and subsequently destroy a sizeable piece of our childhood.
We are hurt, angry, and have very little patience for anyone waiting in the wings to fuck up a good plot or storyline. Can you blame us? If given the opportunity most of us would have gone for the throats of the team that sandbagged the force unleashed 2. if the result is all to often we get storylines like Command and conquer 4, you can expect us to naturally be rabidly concerned youre trying or being forced to franchise and cashcow us.
Good people go to bed earlier.
The issue is that it's not the giants folding under this, it's the little people. Sure, there won't be a Fez 2, but the guy probably isn't going to make anything else either.
This does not just happen with games. I program audio devices for the High end audiophile market. I have the same issues with some members of our firums.
cd pub
more beer
Your mom, who never played them? I strongly suspect this is just a case of content creators expecting the "content consumers" to have an attention span of under 30s, similarly to what happens with "Lost" or "Star Trek" fans bashing the product for not being consistent with itself.
Just shut up and buy, damn it!
If you don't want strangers to comment on your game and complain when it doesn't evolve the way they want to (and are willing to pay for), then don't release your game to the public - keep it for yourself and close friends who will be more tactful with feedback.
But if you release it to the world and are willing to take money from all of these rabid fans, then don't be surprised when those that are paying your paycheck want some input into the direction of what they are paying for.
It's not just the gaming industry that faces feedback from its customers... at least game players (for the most part) are not physically in your face, try running a retail store and face the woman that feels she was cheated on some purchase and brings her burly husband to back her up right at closing time when you're the only one in the store.
MMO devs often take a fairly hands-off attitude about their community, don't do anything about harassment and griefing... then are confused that their community is dominated by toxic people.
Yes, it's a great thing to be thick-skinned, but it's not a moral virtue, it's just really useful. The people who are trying to offend other users and mock them for being sensitive are not really good for your community, and if you keep tacitly endorsing them, you end up with a community of people who have learned that abuse works, because the people it worked on mostly left. Then they do it to you too, and suddenly it's a problem...
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Or pays attention to the facts and knows to disregard hyperbole as the dishonest bullshit that it is.
Some gamers have moved from a perspective of critical approval before purchase, "If it's a good game then I'll get it" to a sense of entitlement, "they owe me a good game".
It would be interesting to see if there is any correlation between this entitlement and when a game is marketed as "teh bestest game ever!!11!!"
Once you have promised the customer a good game and you expect them to save their money and time for your game instead of the competitors then you can expect some flak if you don't live up to your promises.
There is still no excuse for death threats but expect people to be angry if you waste their time with hollow expectations.
Leave. ...
Twitter.
You welcome...
A-HOLE!
Oh wait!
If a user have more than 100 comments, it's a hardcore fan, and then must be ignored.
Along with several of the other gaming "journalism" sites out there, Polygon is a sham that exists only to sensationalize faux-social justice issues in game (so it's no wonder that Soulskill fast-tracked it on /., being the "social justice warrior" s/he is). There's a huge problem with gaming journalism today no longer serving the gaming population and instead serving the gaming publishers and developers. This is not how it should be.
However, they're probably right about this. Not that it's newsworthy, since this has always been the case, but it's certainly true. Fans are very loud and obnoxious about changing the direction of a game or game series, and for good reason: we continue to buy into a series or developer because we like what we've seen in the past. It's fine for a dev to try something new in a new title, but taking an ongoing series in a completely different direction is going to get you a lot of unhappy fans.
Look at the recent DmC reboot or SW:TOR as examples. These games royally pissed off fans of the series (the latter especially for me, since it retconned a lot that happened in KotOR 2, which is my single favorite game). Do you really expect me to sit by while the devs bastardize my favorite game? No! I'm going to complain! I'm going to be loud, I'm going to be obnoxious, and I'm going to be every bit as rude to them as they're being to their fans (including me) by bastardizing the series that we bought into, both literally and figuratively. If this makes me a "bully," so be it. I'd rather be a bully than a pussy who can't handle justified criticism and needs to be isolated in their own personal fucking hugbox at all times. Isolating yourself from and ignoring your userbase is the reason why projects like GNOME have failed so hard recently, and if they think I'm going to stand by and be polite and nice when they're doing this with my favorite games, they've got another thing coming.
Why are all those other people expected to change their behavior, but you're not to be expected to change yours?
This direct communication can actually do more harm than good. The most vocal in a community are not necessarily speaking for the majority and I think game developers make that mistake all too often. They attempt to appease the loud minority which ultimately pisses off the happy majority when the changes are put in. The reality is the unhappy minority will never be happy anyway. They hate their own lives and these developer forums are just a medium for them to express it. I've always had difficulty understanding people who spew their vitriol on developer forums. I wonder why they don't just simply stop playing if it's really as bad as they say it is. Star Wars Galaxies comes to mind where the complaining was so bad from the minority that they changed the game. The problem was the change was so bad it pissed off the majority. Everyone quit to go play WOW but the harassment continued. I think the lead developer of that re-write ended up killing himself years later. Really? Over a game? People need to lighten up. It's a game. Not your real life. Just because you waste your life away playing a video game doesn't give you any rights to demand anything. If you don't like it, quit. The bullying and harassment should be completely ignored. In fact, I would keep the developers away from hearing or interacting with the customer entirely. Allow them to fulfill their creative potential without the noise.
Alternatively, the most straightforward way to stop criticism from disaffected "fans" would be to give them what they want, rather than assuming that some designer somewhere knows better.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Isn't that sorta like abusing the rowing slaves for the lousy conditions on the galley?
Just stop reading fan mail. Don't post your email account online. Don't have a blog with comments that people can post to. Don't go to sites dedicated to your game. You will not see all the hate if you don't go out of your way to read it!
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
Since when is "I will find you and kill you" useful feedback, let alone appropriate? And who should have to listen to dreck like that?
that doesn't mean that I should be justified to spew vitriol
No, of course not; there should definitely be a censhorship apparatus put in place.. right? That's what you're implying/suggesting, I assume?
I'm still mourning the loss of Fez II thanks to all the haters and trolls :(
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
>>> blatant abuse from immature children masquerading as adults who have no mental capacity for filtering their insane behavior.
When you frame criticism and your customers in this light, it is clear that your industry has a huge problem. Imagine, for example, Microsoft or Apple, referring to their customer base as "immature children who have no mental capacity for filtering". Do you think they get any less or more polite criticism (esp. Microsoft) ?
Gaming Industry doesn't get that they are part of the service industry. Customer is always right, and all that. Instead they act like divas and treat customers as nuisance.
What other IT industry behaves as badly and treats their customers with such contempt?
I would go another direction and say it is a case of 'no good deed goes unpunished'. Developers have increasingly been building relationships with their player base, interacting in forums and such, .. and while you get some good feedback out of listening to the community you also get a LOT of very soul crushing abuse, much of it coming from people who do not understand game design or balance, or even consider other types of players.
The people in charge of making such unpopular decisions are not the ones paying the price though. Much like how many of the people who pull the strings to decide the good people of some other country NEED a war aren't going to the front line.
The people at biggamecorp who decide that the end to the game will require an additional $20, and you will need to be online at all times with ads popping up in-game, who make the testers work 60 hours a week for no overtime and then are fired immediately upon launch AREN'T the ones being threatened here. Don't try to rationalize it.
To extend the metaphor, the trolls who make death threats are like the terrorists. When is the last time you heard of a terrorist trying to attack a US politician who actually had any power? That's too hard. They're both taking their rage out on innocent people because they are too lazy, cowardly, and/or stupid to do anything against the real "bad guys" they claim to be hating.
The outright sociopathy i see in games used to be funny, conjuring up the image of some chubby raging on his/her keyboard.
Now a days it's a little scary, seriously the churning sickness I see on the Net, especially in violent games gets laughed off as "it's kids in a game" but based on some of the comments I've seen it looks more like budding psychopaths working out their final words to their victims.
It's a psych's wet dream for deviant and disturbed behaviour.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Some gamers have moved from a perspective of critical approval before purchase, "If it's a good game then I'll get it" to a sense of entitlement, "they owe me a good game".
It would be interesting to see if there is any correlation between this entitlement and when a game is marketed as "teh bestest game ever!!11!!"
Once you have promised the customer a good game and you expect them to save their money and time for your game instead of the competitors then you can expect some flak if you don't live up to your promises.
There is still no excuse for death threats but expect people to be angry if you waste their time with hollow expectations.
Advertising a game with a load of pictures and hyperbole is a waste of effort. The word gets around that it's good or bad and it sells or does not sell. All they need to do is email people who are registered for their last game there's a new one out and Word of Mouth will do the rest.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Fanfic content? RABID ATTACK DOGS! ATTACK! is the response from the companies.
Trying to use the frigging game? OUR WAY ONLY (see both the closure of Windows For Games and the move to "We are putting it as a Steam Exclusive, and STFU and buy it or don't" elsewhere) from the companies.
man if you haven't felt "OMG WHAT THe FucK I PAID FOR THIS SHIT WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS FUCKING INVISIBLE WALL DOING HERE AND WHAT THE FUCK BUGGED MENU tOOK MY ITEMS" then you really haven't played at all.
anyways, it's not like they're going to go through with the threats unless they screw over south koreans with some loot disappearing bugs.
besides than I'm pretty sure if you found guys responsible for kotor2 release and whoever came up with me3 ending you could get away if it was a "jury trial of your peers"..
I don't think that any game developer with any vision is going to stop developing because some guys bitch on twitter though... many more are going to stop because nobody gives a fuck either way about their games.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Wait, the game industry treats its people badly, so that means it is morally ok for fans to treat them badly too because it is their own fault for being game developers?
>>>I should be justified to spew vitriol at the coders, artists and others working in the industry.
Why "coders, artists and others" are representing your company? Almost-always deserved abuse is targeted at the specific company (e.g. EA Sports). Vitriol falling on regular folks is direct result of these regular folks attention-seeking diva behavior that is so prevalent in the gaming industry.
For example, you don't see "regular folk" speaking for Microsoft, and no-surprise they don't get abused for Microsoft's transgressions. Now, Ballmer, on other hand is known to throw chairs around...
Yes - self-censorship. The internal voice that says, or should say, "This is something that should not be said to another person, since I (ideally) don't want to be a jack ass".
I'd wonder as well how much of it is because of the distinct lack of demos, shareware, and trials.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Uhh... I'm paying money for it. They DO owe me a good game. Why would I give them money for a bad game?
Death threats are not criticism.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Are you wearing the nametag? Then they are yelling at a representative of said company, not the employee as a person.
You are confusing interpersonal relationships with corporate relationships. Are you one of the "Corporations are people" market extremists? I hope not.
Fundamental issue here is Customers vs Corporations, and customers by virtue of payment, are entitled to any and all kind of abuse directed at these corporations. When abuse spills on unsuspecting employees of these corporations, well then it is a problem with corporate governance.
Wanting a good game for you money is entitlement now, eh?
Uhh... I'm paying money for it. They DO owe me a good game. Why would I give them money for a bad game?
Vote with your dollars. If you don't like a game, don't buy it, go buy something else. Whinging about what a bad game or company it is if it doesn't meet your standards is sour grapes.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
When you frame criticism and your customers in this light, it is clear that your industry has a huge problem.
Wait, whose industry, again? Are you assuming the GP is part of the game industry?
Imagine, for example, Microsoft or Apple, referring to their customer base as "immature children who have no mental capacity for filtering". Do you think they get any less or more polite criticism (esp. Microsoft) ?
Huh, apparently that IS the assumption you're making. Because I don't see anyone but the GP using that phrase.
Not that Microlith is wrong, of course. These people ARE immature children, straight-up, no matter how old they are. This sort of entitled, me-first behavior is really no way to behave anywhere. No, I don't care about your snarky remarks about bankers or politicians or however else you want to deflect it, it's still wrong.
Gaming Industry doesn't get that they are part of the service industry. Customer is always right, and all that. Instead they act like divas and treat customers as nuisance.
Now you're just rationalizing. Either that, or you're deluded enough to believe that nuisance customers actually DON'T exist. They do, I can assure you, and the internet culture built around celebrating these trolls is only making it worse.
What other IT industry behaves as badly and treats their customers with such contempt?
I had no idea "complaining about legitimate nuisance customers" was "behaving badly". Are they slaves now?
Y'know, in fact, have YOU ever had a job where you had to deal with real people? I'd be fascinated to hear how you'd react to serving yourself as a customer. Like, if you had to serve a solipsistic asshole who only ever saw other people as tools designed to do your bidding, tools which are marked "behaving badly" if they ever showed any signs of humanity or not wanting to put up with your bullshit.
As an extension of this, see if there's correlation between this entitlement and the increased ubiquity of pre-purchase offers in the industry. I can understand the demands given you paid $60 for the game 3 months ago.
But who should be getting the abuse you advocate? The executives of the big publishers or the regular folks working for the industry to actually make games? I've disliked games before but that doesn't mean that I should be justified to spew vitriol at the coders, artists and others working in the industry.
Maybe, but I think there's something wrong with society when people aren't capable of taking criticism, however unjustified. If anyone is threatening to do these guys or their families physical harm, then that absolutely crosses the line, and they need to call the police. If they're talking about random people online talking about how much they hate a game and the developers who made it...grow the fuck up and develop a thicker skin. Either be proud of the work and ignore what people say, or listen to them if the criticism is valid and see what you can do to do better. If you can't stand it, then by all means do leave the industry.
When we release our work to the public, whatever that work happens to be, we open ourselves up for criticism. Sometimes that can be really hurtful as a combination of people being assholes and the time you've invested in doing the work. However, it comes with the territory, and if you can't take it, then maybe you shouldn't be in an industry where you release your work to the public. Maybe you should keep all your art under your bed and never show it to anyone.
>>>Imagine somebody coming up to the counter of whatever supermarket you work at and start verbally abusing you for decissions made by some upper level management people.
When you are flipping burgers that are known to give people food poisoning, then yes, if I happen to eat one and get poisoned I will let you know what I think about your company and your burgers.
At the same time it wouldn't be directed at you as a person, rather you as a nearest representative of the company.
Well that problem can be easily solved for most of those mentally ill kids .... hunt and hang. They have no right to abuse.
Gaming industry deserves all the abuse it gets. Extreme cases of abuse aside, all criticism is they get is deserved.
No one deserves amount of naked, unbridled hatred and venom that the internet can generate, least of all people who are trying their best to make something nice for you.
Besides, all the nonsense you complain about is management level decisions. It's the creative types who are feeling the venom, and it's much harder to be creative and make something fun when you're being told how worthless you are and how you should just die than it is to make soulless marketing decisions.
In other words, your nerd rage does nothing but weed out the people who might make things better and leave only the ones who just don't care.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
In other words, the Gubbmint is right and video games make people violent, and they should be banned. Right.
So if someone doesn't like your post, you're okay with getting phone calls at 3 in the morning threatening your family members?
People have done this with every form of media ever. there really is just a few simple things you can do.
1. Stop focusing on the bad. Seriously, it's the internet. Responding to harsh comments is the equivalent to going to the "I hate company X fanclub" that's halfway across town.
The internet is huge, you can go anywhere else, but you chose to go there. Your own fault. There are some people that simply need to be ignored.
2. Don't be a douche, except for when it's a result of 1.
3. Reward people who support you, even if something small. How gearbox does the golden key thing with borderlands is a good example.
But watching grown men tackle each other for 5 hours is quality entertainment. Am I right?
...simply stopped buying big name products. I have invested in some Kickstarter gamesand look forward to those.
True, after all of these stories - how awful gamers are to women, how awful gamers are to each other, how awful gamers are to developers - we should just put all gamers in a fenced off Montana. They can all go be awful together with minimal lag...
Which version of the fable had the fox pay a good bit of money for the grapes, eat them, and then warn other potential customers not to throw away a good bit of money on sour grapes?
And if you're over 16 and judging others on how they spend their free time on an internet forum, you are a loser, also an asshole hypocrite, and probably a troll.
..have you ever seen the internet?
I've been on a lot of game dev forums and the thing is that they don't start out hostile.
What happens is that the devs will frequently ignore the fan base who are their customers... do stupid things that pretty much everyone hates... insult the fan base by either saying people really want the thing they don't want or say they don't care what people want and do it anyway.
In addition to that, you'll have bugs that won't get fixed for MONTHS to YEARS despite many updates... simple things... that just get ignored in patch after patch after patch.
So yeah, after awhile people can get hostile.
I was recently on the Hirez forum for a game called smite. The company shut the forum down it got so toxic. But it was their own fault. They pissed everyone off horribly and instead of listening to people they ignored them/told them they didn't care. SHOCKINGLY people were upset.
And instead of dealing with that situation from their CUSTOMERS they decided to shut the forum down and move everything to Reddit where its pretty much impossible to sustain a good righteous flame.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Really? You're going to go down the "blame the victim" path here? It's the developer's fault that some people in his audience are childish tools?
That's fucking ludicrous
Seriously, dude, RTFA. It's not about Microsoft getting death threats. It's about people.
If your BIGGEST headache is your fans, you're obviously not prioritizing correctly. Bigger headaches should be funding, staffing (hiring and retention), negotiating with publishers/distributors, quality, testing, advertising, and treating your labor with respect while still eeking out a profit. If you're paying attention to non-constructive whiners, you're doing it wrong. I felt the last season of The Guild was entirely unnecessary, but if this problem is as prevalent as this article makes it out to be, I'm now hoping that season was a therapeutic wake-up call.
"Love heals scars love left." -- Henry Rollins
> Imagine somebody coming up to the counter of whatever supermarket you work at and start verbally abusing you for decissions made by some upper level management people.
You've never worked in service or retail. This happens constantly.
Leaving an organisation because the clients/customers don't act in a respectable way is unfortunately normal. I guess since the bad behaviour is due to a fictional situation it is even harder for the employee to ignore the conduct.
Part of good game development business practice is to NEVER have developers talking directly to fans or viceversa. There should be middlemen who do that, namely community coordinators, moderators and such.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
I'd wonder as well how much of it is because of the distinct lack of demos, shareware, and trials.
Sometimes a lemon is a lemon, no matter how much decoration you put on it and a winner gets around like wildfire. There are only so many gullible n00bs each year, coming into their early learning years (or sufficiently practiced at wheedling to get mum or dad to pay for it) and once or twice burned on a sub-standard game and they're into the jaded majority.
Small wonder gaming company stocks are such a risky investment. Winners like Tetris or Angry Birds come along every now and then, but generally from completely unexpected directions.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
If they stopped requiring constant internet access for the games I play, MAYBE I'd stop harassing them
No big loss. Fish is, to be blunt, a huge douchebag, and all the harassment he received was just a fraction of his own venom blowing back in his face. Of course he's not the only abrasive indie dev, but others like Edward MacMillan actually make (and this is key) *decent games*. Now if it were someone like Tarn Adams, that would be cause to give a damn.
Did you read the article? There were death threats. That's what they're upset about.
Who said anything about actual violence? We're talking about violent *language*. When is the last time you played an online FPS without people shouting/chatting that they were going to kill you? Why would you expect such people to suddenly express their passions in a calm reasoned manner in the still-mostly-anonymous forums?
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Yes, they are talking about real threats of violence, as well as abuse, harassment, and personal attacks that are about THEM, and not about their work. Not 'random people online talking about how much they hate a game and the developers who made it' but anonymous freaks who contact them directly to abuse and threaten them. Read first, comment later, idiot.
Jesus there's some warped people on this particular thread.
No one is entitled to "...any and all kind of abuse directed at these corporations" as a behaviour. So, I don't like a product you produced, it's ok for me to come a shit on the front steps of your corporate headquarters? Because that's just a building right? It's the corporation that owns that building so no people were harmed in me heaping abuse on it.
Because the building just cleans itself, the hate mail just opens and reads itself, the corporate drone on the other end of the phone line or administering the forum isn't a "real" person, they're just a cog in the machine. If they go home depressed or upset by your perfectly justified death threats, well, that's the fault of how the company is structured and run?
Wow.
>>>Wait, the game industry treats its people badly, so that means it is morally ok for fans to treat them badly too because it is their own fault for being game developers?
No, the game industry treats customers badly by pushing derivative and faulty product and engaging in abusive practices. The fans, who happen to be paid customers, react to this and lash out at company representatives. Since whole gaming industry is riddled with poor management and questionable practices they do not have any mechanisms in place separating employees as people from getting ire directed at the company.
Saying criticism must stop is sticking your corporate heads in the sand. Customer criticism is there for a reason. It is yet another gaming industry failure that it happen to fall on specific individuals not involved in PR.
any women that claim to be geeks are pretending, likely to try to seduce a "real geek."
Does it make be a bad person, or geek, that my first thought was 'Seduce Me!'?
On reflection there's the 'pretending to be somebody that you're not' problem though.
I don't read AC A human right
Imagine somebody coming up to the counter of whatever supermarket you work at and start verbally abusing you for decissions made by some upper level management people.
Do you think that doesn't happen? I have seen that shit in both poor and rich neighborhoods, actually it happens more in the rich neighborhoods than the poorer ones. Must be something to do with poor people having worked in retail/customer service at some point before. It happens in every customer facing industry that I know of,(yes threats of physical violence) just on web forums there is some kind of record.
And they work there of their own free will. It's not like this is a hidden secret. He knew, you obviously knew otherwise you would have evinced some shock at the idea.
They can refuse to aid the abuse of the customers. No developers == nothing for the marketing to sell and no revenue to pay executive pay.
But they can do whatever they like in corporate because the developers won't decide not to help them fuck people over.
They're not solving it, they're part of the problem.
It is like yelling at the cashier at wal-mart because they don't sell monster truck tires.
1. You haven't even played the game, or haven't played it enough yet to understand why X feature is/isn't in the game.
2. You are directing your unjustified hate at the wrong person.
Instead of letting the hate flow through you and writing a stupid forum post to feel good from the endorphins it releases you should take some time to understand why the decision was made. It was probably made by people more informed and much smarter than you. You're still going to buy the game and what you're writing isn't going to change the game. At the most it is going to turn away other people from playing the game so you have less people to enjoy the game with and decreasing the chance of more content being produced for the game.
The Official Site of 1337 Pwnage
Did you pay me to read my posts? Was there something majorly wrong with my post? Did I put my contact information in the post with intention to get contacted about the post? If yes to all of these, then call away.
If I recall correctly, there was even personal and family information posted online about some Blizzard employees by angry WoW players.
Either way, the trolling on gaming forums is far out of hand. I won't even bother visiting them anymore because 90% of them are just that. The only time I will is if I'm having hardware problems and I'm looking for fixes.
WTF are you talking about? And you are aware that death threats don't suck, they're actually illegal. If somebody online makes a death threat against me, and I can identify them, I can have them arrested on felony charges. That's in the US at least, I know the UKs laws are even more strict and I imagine most civilized countries are similar.
Why not impose rules of civility and enforce them?
Cultivate good moderators and ban abusive and disruptive people. Frequently.
When you make civil behavior the norm and reward it, it becomes its own pattern.
Let the trolls start their own discussion boards and then ignore them. If somebody starts to attack devs on a personal level and those attacks manage to penetrate these basic rule walls, keep somebody on staff whose job it is to return the favor by exposing and laying charges if necessary.
I see very little of this practice on line, but where I do see it, it works well.
Big game companies have budgets, some of which needs to be devoted to public relations. This is that.
First Amendment!
Beloved franchise=first released in 2009 to moderate critical reception.
I didn't buy dragon age 2 because I could smell the awful a mile away. That doesn't justify threatening the goddamn life of writer, in conjunction with your kind of misogynistic bullshit, over the fact that she wrote some things you don't like.
Amen!
slander/libel!
Well, what you see as "violent language", many other people will see as "death threats". Your argument, if it holds any water at all, would only apply to in game player to player communication.
The reason one should expect the player to be better behaved in the forums is because they are not in the heat of battle and are addressing the people who made their enjoyment possible.
How will you know if you like it or not before you purchase it? Less and less games have demos anymore, most likely because demos provide a modest boost for a good game and kill a bad one. With a bad game, therefore, you get the people who are pissed because they bought the hype, the people who liked it and people in the middle. Gee, I wonder which group is the most vocal. (As an aside, I think most people who use the expression "sour grapes" need to actually look up the fable.)
>>>Death threats are not criticism.
Agreed, but don't try to pretend that death threats is the only kind of feedback they get.
Just because some idiot threatened you, doesn't mean that all other criticism you got is automatically invalid, nor that everyone else who didn't make any death threats is not entitled to criticize you.
Look up "red herring".
Why is it so hard to accept that the 'criticism' that game companies get might worse than what is directed at other industries? The customer is absolutely not always right; any business has the right to throw someone out on their ear if they're being abusive, paying customer or no. Giving a company money does not entitle you to behave however you please towards its employees.
Since when is "I will find you and kill you" useful feedback, let alone appropriate? And who should have to listen to dreck like that?
Since when did people start believing anything they read on the internet. I just don't get it - a death threat is exactly as credible as a poster extolling the virtue of his Ferrari and the 17 hos he pimps from it.
Any change will please some fans and anger others, and it's mostly the angry ones who will post. Having a "community relations" person to find the few facts-and-numbers complaints and forwards those on to devs is can be valuable (and sadly is almost never done), but beyond that all the forums really tell you is "27% more angry rants than the last change", which is interesting and useful information - no need to read the actual rants. Or "the complaint thread got so large it broke our forum software" - always good to know.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Understand that the following is typical "blame-the-victim" mentality, but I think it has a lot of basis in-fact:
When you write a game whose story, material, and setting, attract violent, unparented pre-teens as the chief demographic among your customers - you should pretty much expect the "I will find you and kill you" mentality to be strongly dominant among your customer base.
I'm betting that if the CoD-type game authors turned to writing First-Person-Barbie-Doll simulations, they'd have a wildly different set of customers, and more civilized feedback.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Hey, unless you're paying big bucks to watch a bunch of millionaires chase a dead pig, your entertainment is just childish, and you're probably gay.
I do think that that attitude is aging out, though. Thank goodness.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
>>>Why is it so hard to accept that the 'criticism' that game companies get might worse than what is directed at other industries?
Because retail, fast food, Tier 1 phone support for large teleco and many other industries and jobs exist?
then don't be surprised when those that are paying your paycheck want some input into the direction of what they are paying for.
What other industry does that happen in? With a single exception that springs to mind (Snakes On A Plane), fans do not have direct input into the direction that a movie should take. People don't buy books because they think they have some say in how the story progresses, they buy a book because they appreciate the author's work. Some random person paying for a print of a painting does not get to tell the painter what to do. You can commission a work of art if you want to, and then you get some amount of creative control, but artists taking advice from fans is not the normal way that art gets created. The artists create the art, and the public can either like it, or not like it. Why should some obsessive gamer be allowed to influence the story line in a game just because they're paying for it? If they don't like the story, then don't fucking pay for it. The writers, designers, developers, etc who work on games are artists. They don't need to take criticism on their work and compromise their own artistic vision of it just because Joe Shmoe paid a few hours worth of his paycheck to buy their art.
If you disagree with the direction a game series is headed, then stop fucking paying money for it. That's in fact the single reason why I'm not going to buy any more Dragon Age games (although the direction I disagree with is a business decision and not an artistic one).
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
So, I guess game development is pretty good preparation for a career in politics, after all.
And not just her; they threatened her god damned KIDS. What the fuck is wrong with these pathetic neckbeards? "I didn't like your story so I WILL MURDER YOUR CHILDREN WHILE THEY SLEEP AND THEN EAT THEIR FACES also ur fat lulz." People like that deserve a lot worse than a shitty game experience.
When the companies do actually have meaningful interactions with the player base, I don't generally see them getting angry at the developers. If I may give an example, I play Guild Wars 2 alot, and the relationship between the players and the developers has generally been civil. People complain about things, but they don't go after the developers.
The exception has been a couple of occasions where the company released an obviously broken patch and, for some reason, decided to respond that was obviously not true and then went completely silent for days until the event ended and it became a moot point. THAT'S the kind of behavior that sends the player base into a seething rage, and quiet understandbly.
It's this thin veneer of ironic hate, that really fails to cover for being fundamentally bad people. "I'm posting on the internet, in a way that will permanently demonstrate my incompatibility with civilized society."
I used to work as a supermarket cashier, and this exact thing would happen from time to time. When you're working for someone and wearing their logo, you're acting as a representative of the company (for good or bad). It's part of the reason I had the job, and people who wouldn't put up with germs and abuse wouldn't.
It's similar to the "contractors on the Death Star" discussion from the film Clerks. It's your own responsibility to know what you're getting into when you accept a job, be it a supermarket, a polluter, a gun factory, or a video game company.
You are confusing interpersonal relationships with corporate relationships.
Sorry, but who exactly is confused here? We have obsessive gamers threatening the children of writers. Exactly which person is confusing the personal relationship with the corporate relationship?
are entitled to any and all kind of abuse directed at these corporations.
Who gives a shit? This article is not about people spewing vitriol at corporations, and those corporations whining about it because their corporate feelings got hurt. This article is about people spewing vitriol at individuals, and their families, and those people deciding that the hate is not worth it. And I agree with them, it's not worth it.
When abuse spills on unsuspecting employees of these corporations, well then it is a problem with corporate governance.
So the person who makes death threats against an employee's family is completely blameless, right? That's your point, correct? It's perfectly normal to issue a threat to kill a writer's family if I don't like the decision she made in the script of a video game. That's a perfectly reasonable, not-at-all-sociopathic-or-psychotic reaction to a video game, correct? That's what you're arguing for?
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
You do realize that corporations don't physically exist independently of the employees that comprise them, right? There's not some physical avatar of EA running about that people can curse out. Any abuse directed at EA is necessarily going to be directed at one or more of the employees.
>Since when is "I will find you and kill you" useful feedback, let alone appropriate?
For the people who imposed Gmail's "New Compose" on everyone.
Except that the criticism in these cases is focused at the developers who are already in those "sweatshop" like conditions (which, by the way, are not always the norm).
You should read the article before you post about it. Sharing your ignorance is not really something to aspire to.
What other IT industry behaves as badly and treats their customers with such contempt?
Gaming is not Information Technology. It is entertainment. Another entertainment industry that treats its customers with contempt would be the music industry.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
The software is released with 0-day DLC, piss-poor support, and the default mode is that all customers are thieves. Is it any wonder as these things have increased, so has customer rage?
By no means do I advocate aggression or threats, but I *understand* it. The big software co's have been trying for the better part of a decade to screw their customers and have them coming back begging for more.
My 2c: I'm willing to bet the majority of these threats stem from players of MMO's and multiplayer games. When we pay for an 'ongoing service' we expect just that: service!
Lots of people have jobs where they have to deal with the loonies. Gaming tends to be a product a higher-than-average amount of people care passionately about. Don't like it? Seek employment elsewhere. You knew what you were getting into. Better yet, stop releasing crap and treating your customers like dirt, and you wouldn't get death threats. /end rant
So you actually believe things that you read on the internet? When did that start happening?
The only content I see in any frothing hate-filled post is "add 1 to the count of unhappy customers". The count itself may be quite interesting, especially if you have past data to compare it to. The content can be safely ignored, except for the rare facts-and-numbers post (which rarely contains venom).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
man if you haven't felt "OMG WHAT THe FucK I PAID FOR THIS SHIT WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS FUCKING INVISIBLE WALL DOING HERE AND WHAT THE FUCK BUGGED MENU tOOK MY ITEMS" then you really haven't played at all.
Feeling that and allowing it to trigger developer abuse is far from the same thing so why even bring this up?
anyways, it's not like they're going to go through with the threats unless they screw over south koreans with some loot disappearing bugs.
Regardless of threats becoming actions, I'd wish the abuse of receiving all those threats on noone.
besides than I'm pretty sure if you found guys responsible for kotor2 release and whoever came up with me3 ending you could get away if it was a "jury trial of your peers"..
I wouldn't assume my, or your, "peers" share the same undervalue of human life or overvalue of an entertainment product.
I don't think that any game developer with any vision is going to stop developing because some guys bitch on twitter though... many more are going to stop because nobody gives a fuck either way about their games.
And yet that is exactly what's happening and you're underestimating this issue by saying "some" ...
people (in the US at least, and i assume the rest of the world) need to start taking some responsibility for who they are willing to work for and what manner of atrocities they are willing to commit/make excuses for in the name of "doing their job". your laziness and lack of backbone and original thinking landed you in the first degenerate company that would hire your useless ass and now i'm supposed to take pity on you as you waste my time, steal my money, violate my rights? You want to represent an evil corp for pennies? now suffer the consequences!
"go threw a wall"?
It's "through a wall," YOU ILLITERATE ASS!
I will FIND you AND KILL YOU and ALL OF YOUR FAMILY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(There. You mean like that?)
Wait, so you are saying that if CoD player IhateCuntFags doesn't like his weapon's reload time, looks up the name of one of the game developers and then sends him death threats, that it is the company's fault?
Did you read the article?
Did you understand it?
FYI: Those are rhetorical questions, because clearly you did not.
It makes money for the game company. It is more along the lines of:
1: Release patch or expansion.
2: Players find that some changes make one class just tower above the others in PvP and raids in some combo that does DPS or whatnot.
3: To get onto raids, one needs to have a FoTM (flavor of the month) alt.
4: Blizz finally does a slight nerf.
5: Blizz finally kills what advantage the class has. If it is PvP, then the "rock/scissors/paper" class that is the class's prey gets a "get out of jail free" card (*cough Shadow Step*.)
6: Cycle begins again.
Blizz does profit from this. When MoP came out, virtually all non-monk healers were gkicked from raid guilds since monk healers were just plain better in every way. So, everyone had to roll and grind monks in order to see actual endgame (i.e. something other than the Raid Finder circus.) All the time people spend having to go back and do 1-95 content again is at least one month's sub, perhaps two, and multipled by all the people out there, that's a good turnout.
I got tired of that treadmill, hitting the top 10 PvE ladder in gear, only to find all healers of a class get gkicked because they are not the FoTM healer. Similar with tanking. A poor prot warrior just isn't going to get the guild MT slot these days unless they are just shining when it comes to gear.
There are other MMOs. Rift has no FOTM class [1]. In fact, 3.0 promises that all archetypes can tank/heal/DPS. EQ2 has so many ways to get gear, (raids, arenas versus the gods, PvP, crafting, solo dungeons) that one doesn't have to grind gear level after gear level in order to see endgame raids and actually be geared for it.
[1]: Rift does have its annoyances, as sometimes you have to have a custom talent build just for one mob/encounter. Rift PvP actually is fairly well thought out. I've run 1-60 in warfronts, and not really seen one archetype/class just dominate, unlike in WoW where you either play a certain class/spec, or you are that class/spec's HK.
Let's not blame gamers as a whole for the abuses of a few misanthropic nutjobs. Is it just me, or do others consider peeps whose whole world, or a substantial part of it, is a computer game to be froot loops? How can someone who is so disconnected from reality interact in an appropriate manner with game developers or anyone else? The solution is counseling and medication, not blaming the many for the misdeeds of the few.
The great majority of gamers are normal people who just happen to like video games, at least that I have seen. And I used to work for a video card company and be an ardent gamer myself, so I saw a lot of these folks. On the whole, they are pretty darned cool, and usually very technically adept to boot. There is a particular subset that are the stereotypical "computer dork", however (as opposed to geeks). Socially inept, weird, often hygenically challenged, this little grouping has a distinct lack of interpersonal skills. The anonymity of the Internet, and also the rather rowdy behavior on some online games, just makes their behavior worse by diminishing behavioral restraints. Not being able to interact well with people face-to-face, they are also not able to do so online. To make things worse, some of these folks are flat out mentally ill. It should therefore come as no surprise that the freak show acts deranged, obnoxious and abusive.
"Must be something to do with poor people having worked in retail/customer service at some point before."
uhh, more like conditioned helplessness. do you always ascribe noble explanations for base behavior? how is someone to improve if you write off their crapulence?
Nah, internet's shit out in Montana. Can't get enough pr0n and anime torrented in during the downtime between games. It'd never work.
But death threats are illegal, and should not be mentioned at all. I'm sorry, but if so much as one person made a death threat at me personally, to hell with their valid criticisms, I'm going to try to find out who they are, report them to the authorities and hopefully have them thrown in jail all so I'm not worried about some nameless psychopath rushing me in the streets and murdering me.
You can criticize all you want, that's fine. But that does not mean that threats of ANY kind are appropriate or should even be tolerated.
If your customers hate you, you probably have a problem with your product. Deal with it.
As another commenter said, this presumption falls apart with F2P. They are the most numerous, the most vocal and not at all 'customers', yet for some reason, devs listen to those people and actually implement game changes that are to the detriment of everyone else.
"deserved abuse" lol.
Just like women who deserve to be raped because of what they are wearing?
Seriously, grow up. In 10 years I imagine you are going to look back at these posts and hang your head in shame at how much of an idiot you were.
Do you have evidence that employees of those companies regularly get death threats and other harassment on the level of that described in TFA? The online communications of gamers don't feature a special level of anti-social hate, and that includes their direct interactions with developers.
Part of good game development business practice is to NEVER have developers talking directly to fans or viceversa. There should be middlemen who do that, namely community coordinators, moderators and such.
The problem is if you are a new independent start-up that is essentially a one-man show. I would like to point out the experience of Marcus "Notch" Persson who literally did everything in the company at first from writing the HTML for the website, the back end server work, and the actual game development. Yes, now he has the money to hire people to do all of that stuff, but he was at least at first doing everything on his own.
There are other similar very small game development companies I've interacted with that are in a similar position... even with very popular games. Even using the example of Notch those developers start out by interacting with just a small number of die hard fans, but sometimes either they strike gold or some sort of "magic" happens where whatever they produce becomes extremely popular in spite of their small size. They love the interaction with fans, but eventually get real tired of all of the attention.
The question here really is how do you deal with fans in a company where you are so small that you simply must wear multiple hats? You might be able to enlist some volunteers from the fan base, such as what Jimmy Wales ended up doing with Wikipedia in a mostly volunteer effort including some substantial software development and server operations. Still, even those volunteers have limits and eventually you need at least some people who are paid for what they are doing. If you have a smash hit, it becomes even harder as sometimes the growth of the fan base gets ahead of any effort to get community managers (especially paid ones) in position to deal with them.
It is a nice idea in concept, and when a game development company is in a position to separate the fans (heck, any sort of direct customer interaction for any kind of software development) from the developers it is a good thing. I was a software developer on some major software projects, and thank goodness I only provided tertiary support backing up other customer support representatives. Even then, I often made some pretty awful mistakes when I ended up needing to deal directly with customers.... in spite of the fact I gained a reputation of almost always solving the problems involved (hence why I got many of those kind of support calls). Larger and well established companies certainly should put up some sort of barrier between the developers and the fans.
Games do not train people to kill other people. Debunked thoroughly and yet still promoted as true.
Until [lead] gamers stop referring to their profession to solving mankind's problems. This will continue.
AC troll. No more, no less.
That should be 'the online communications of gamers feature a special...'
Wow, some moderator really needs replace the batteries on his sarcasm detector. Check em twice a year, folks!
Who said anything about actual violence? We're talking about violent *language*. When is the last time you played an online FPS without people shouting/chatting that they were going to kill you? Why would you expect such people to suddenly express their passions in a calm reasoned manner in the still-mostly-anonymous forums?
Because gaming is an outlet that lets people do things in the virtual world that they wouldn't in the real world.
At least that's the defence you see every time some crusader like Jack Thompson blames video games like Grand Theft Auto for real-world shootings and mistreating women.
OK, so threats on an online forum still isn't quite "real world" because it's still pseudo-anonymous, but it's not far behind sending threats by phone or other remote communication.
If violent language is happening after people leave their virtual worlds, then there's some merit to accusations that violent behaviour or actions can also be carried over to real world.
So the frothing, unthinking idiots making violent personal threats are helping to ruin video games from both ends: discouraging talented developers AND giving ammo to crusaders who want government censorship on games.
If I pay for a game and it is riddled with bugs - not meager rendering glitches, but basic accountancy stuff - exactly how am I to get a refund? And, if I can't get a refund, why in hell should I not bitch about a shoddy product?
No.. Software is supposed to work - period. If it doesn't, it's a lemon.
I simply don't understand those who rail about programmers that don't know shit in the corporate world and then give game developers a bye on exactly the same practices.
Where do you draw the line of simple banter and what becomes something serious to bring in the real life law enforcement agents to get involved? I've certainly had people on-line make death threats to me.... both saying they hated my personna and avatar where they would lay in wait on PVP worlds or do other things to really screw up my account.... as well as some where I really did get worried that they would do something in real life to me or my family.
In one case, I did call up a law enforcement agent and they agreed with me after seeing the conversation (I kept a screen shot of what was written) that it was enough to start a formal investigation. Stuff like that happens.
Heck, there have been people who have been killed or at least forced (from their perspective) into suicide. When that happens, those who want to ban these games gain moral authority and certainly political capital to shut stuff like these games down.
Shout fire in a theater and see how far that takes you.
This is a serious issue that needs to be addressed, and I'm glad that some people are talking about it. This shouldn't imply you need to be paranoid when you are in that situation, but to put your head in a hole and pretend these issues are not worthy of even thinking about them or doing some advanced planning to avoid some of the problems which come from fan/developer interactions is also just as silly.
So start treating these as actual threats and prosecuting. This isn't 'obvious joke' territory like the stupid kid with a facebook post about eating hearts. Treat threats as threats. Maybe some actual consequences will clean up BS like this.
Then do so, you feckless pillock.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Si something like that requiris, circumspece.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
A death threat is not criticism. Don't take my word, crack a dictionary.
/. - I'd say all of them.
"Customer is always right"?
Bwahahahaha. Try that attitude here in So Mo. You'll get shown the door and told to never return. If you don't leave, you'll get friggin' thrown out.
"What other IT industry behaves as badly and treats their customers with such contempt?"
From years of reading
But who should be getting the abuse you advocate? The executives of the big publishers or the regular folks working for the industry to actually make games? I've disliked games before but that doesn't mean that I should be justified to spew vitriol at the coders, artists and others working in the industry.
Maybe, but I think there's something wrong with society when people aren't capable of taking criticism, however unjustified. If anyone is threatening to do these guys or their families physical harm, then that absolutely crosses the line, and they need to call the police. If they're talking about random people online talking about how much they hate a game and the developers who made it...grow the fuck up and develop a thicker skin. Either be proud of the work and ignore what people say, or listen to them if the criticism is valid and see what you can do to do better. If you can't stand it, then by all means do leave the industry.
When we release our work to the public, whatever that work happens to be, we open ourselves up for criticism. Sometimes that can be really hurtful as a combination of people being assholes and the time you've invested in doing the work. However, it comes with the territory, and if you can't take it, then maybe you shouldn't be in an industry where you release your work to the public. Maybe you should keep all your art under your bed and never show it to anyone.
You haven't been paying attention, this crap goes into outright threats territory. Writers have been stalked, had their pictures posted on the internet, been mocked (especially females) for their looks and lives unrelated to work. Fans treat the industry so badly not even EA should have to put up with it. Gamers as a cultural group are highly dysfunctional and rather disgusting in their behavior. If you've been into gaming (as in attending conferences and reading interviews levels of "into gaming") for a long time you surely must have noticed the trend.
It's repulsive. And those saying any of it is "deserved" are either ignorant or equally repulsive.
Any change will please some fans and anger others, and it's mostly the angry ones who will post. Having a "community relations" person to find the few facts-and-numbers complaints and forwards those on to devs is can be valuable (and sadly is almost never done), but beyond that all the forums really tell you is "27% more angry rants than the last change", which is interesting and useful information - no need to read the actual rants.
Somehow, producers for every other entertainment media figured out that you can't give consumers a direct voice, but the video game makers seem to have missed the memo.
All one has to do is take a step back and suppose the devs actually implemented every idea suggested. Then look towards your favorite fanfiction site or newsgroup and imagine what a horrible world we would live in if all that stuff was actually canon.
More Twoson than Cupertino
Since "I" was Obama and "you" was Assange or Snowden.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
That was pathetic. Simply pathetic.
I've read this entire posting of threads and not one person suggested it was the only type of feedback devs got.
Understand "red herring".
"At the same time it wouldn't be directed at you as a person".
Bullshit. Verbal abuse is *always* directed at a person. You're rationalizing. The entire context here is abuse and threats, not criticism.
I work for Microsoft.
I have never in my life received an actual death threat, and I have a feeling the products I work on are used by more people than what play Call of Duty. It's not a matter of "just ignore them", it's more of a matter that this kind of reaction can be received for any work of mostly non-offensive (not all of CoD applies here) art.
You complaining to the burger flipper does nothing. Do you think his manager will even listen to him when he tells them about the complaints?
Wrong, the manager will likely blame the burger flipper. So the burger flipper gets hit on 2 fronts because of dbags like you.
If the place has a reputation for food poisoning, then it likely isnt just the burger flippers fault. Half the fault lies on you for eating at a place known for food poisoning.
After reading your other comments on this topic, its obvious that you are just trolling though. Or maybe you are part of the manager class that thinks developers are dog meat.
Stop making shitty games stop making shitty goddamn design decisions and you won't get trolled
AC? Check.
Using symbols instead of letters? Check.
Misspellings? Check.
This post is Slashdot approved!
Still, he uses commas better than you do.
Because you bought a piece of art and it's kind of hard to determine if the art is good or not until you witness it. In this case it means playing the game. While "buyer beware" is a shitty term to throw in the face of dissatisfied customers, in the area of video games there are many different resources to see if the game is worth your money before buying it.
Books are likely to be a very bad example, as there certainly are for some authors a huge fan base. Just look at the community that surrounds JK Rowling with regards to the Harry Potter series for a contemporary example. I could even mention CS Lewis with the Chronicles of Narnia (where fans did have some significant input on the story direction) and L. Frank Baum with the "Oz" series where fan mail kept pushing him into writing more and more stories in the series.
Robert Heinlein got so fed up with his fan base that he ended up moving out to the middle of nowhere to explicitly get away from the fans.... and they still tracked him down and set up permanent encampments near his house that needed to be regularly cleaned out by local law enforcement agents. Some of the fans of Heinlein got so fanatical that they literally considered him either the manifestation of God himself or at least a messianic figure close enough that it didn't matter. It has been suggested that perhaps L. Ron Hubbard got some ideas from that experience of Heinlein when setting up.... you figure the rest.
As for movies, I suppose you've never been to a Star Trek convention? The 501st Legion seems to push things to an interesting extreme where those fans certainly are very demanding with the filmmakers. What about the "Hans shot first" controversy?
I really think this is something that simply comes from mass distributed artwork in general. Serial artwork (books, radio serials, movies, computer games) in particular where the fans invest time (whole heaps of time) and money into the art sometimes expect something back and certainly don't like to see a "change in vision".
Somehow, producers for every other entertainment media figured out that you can't give consumers a direct voice, but the video game makers seem to have missed the memo.
Wow, where do you live? I bet the movies are great there! Here we get one identical focus-group-tuned sequel after another.
Also, there's a world of difference between taking fans' suggestions for future content (fanfic indeed), and admitting when you've lost your established player base with a change. The latter is important to know, as early as possible, and the humility to admit that sometimes you get it wrong is equally important. And that's not all that rare, really.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
GP's clearly a fucking packy, he doesn't know any better.
Yeah I've never played video games or anything so you must be right.
# Words I never hear in the Bible ...
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Fuck all that bullshit. Why not just kill them?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Vitriol falling on regular folks is direct result of these regular folks attention-seeking diva behavior that is so prevalent in the gaming industry.
Sure, their skirts were clearly to short. They wanted it.
For example, you don't see "regular folk" speaking for Microsoft,
No, regular folk - what an imbecilic weasel word - at Microsoft don't do that.
The problem also is that a lot of "fans" do not even know how to deal with a flaw in game mechanics and would happily tinker with the symptoms instead of dealing with a root cause. And also a lot of them do not understand how ugly it is to implement, test and roll out changes to a multi-million audience on a budget of propably nil after the game has been released. And dicontent usually is contagious with a nice mob forming behind ringleaders.
That being said a lot of devs actually deserve the stink they get. I still remember marveling at the degree to which they got Diablo 3 thing wrong. And I'm not talking about the shallow arguments like always-on and too colourful graphics. That game was unintuitive, bland and mechanically unsound from day one.
20 minutes into the future
I have had people calling me names over things management did.
Irregardless who is right, what I do is just shrug it off.
I have also left a company because I disagreed with management. Obviously not something I do with all the decisions I disagree with.
Basically I just ignore people who try to verbally abuse me. Just like I ignore any other troll.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
'I was just following orders' Doesn't cover your ass when its the military fucking up majorly.
'i was just doing my job' doesn't cover your ass when you're working for a shit abusive company either.
You DESERVE the hate if you are any part of a company/org that fucks people over.
Just look at the community that surrounds JK Rowling with regards to the Harry Potter series for a contemporary example.
There are plenty of authors with fans, but did JK Rowling really accept fan input and change what she had already done to satisfy certain fans?
Robert Heinlein got so fed up with his fan base that he ended up moving out to the middle of nowhere to explicitly get away from the fans
Right, probably because he didn't want them interfering with his work.
What about the "Hans shot first" controversy?
That would be Han, and that is another thing entirely, that was Lucas changing a later version of the film and fans getting upset that he changed it. In fact, that's exactly the opposite. The fans wanted the original version.
the fans invest time (whole heaps of time) and money into the art sometimes expect something back
They get something back, they get the next in the series. If they become dissatisfied with the series, then they can stop supporting it.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Some game companys have done their best to make that happen.
Preordered any games lately to get the exclusive can't get any other way neato thing? Theres the problem.
Heck i can even point you to games that are being sold in an ALPHA state right now. You can't even be an alpha tester without PAYING them... They want you to pay to help them develop a good product.
What about hyping the hell out of games with totally fabricated images that have nothing to do with any gameplay? I'd call that outright lying. You go plunk down your money based on pure bullshit. Don't you expect some of what you saw in the fake images?
So yes. They do owe them a good game. they took their money long before it was ever completed and based it all on a lie. And its happening more and more.
Spoken like someone who has never had a job with a nametag.
Did you pay me to read my posts?
Well, yes, we pay you for your post with our own attention, works for Google, make it work for you.
Was there something majorly wrong with my post?
Yes, your underlying premise.
Did I put my contact information in the post with intention to get contacted about the post?
sinji is a form of contact info, and it can be correlated with with your other postings to infer you name and location as well as your phone number. We get that you are still sore from being a phone drone and recipient of outsourcing. Go ahead, blame EA and the like all you want, but there are nutters.
If yes to all of these, then call away.
Thank you for permission, publically posted on the internet, so it's no longer harassment. We may not check back to see if you retract it, but our auto-dialers are standing by.
Also... If you antagonize large swaths of people, some will be nutters. And nutters are nuts. You have to expect death threats and some will even be legit. Even if the first 50 aren't, there's always a chance that the other one, the quiet, calm, well researched one, will pull up one day, smoke a cig, walk over and toss a firebomb through your bedroom window, putting that hideous and filthy excuse you call a curtain out of its misery.
If the players were responsible adults I'd mostly expect that. But there's a large number of kids, immature assholes who've refused to grow up, and mentally unhinged folks in the world - and in any discussion they tend to try to be the loudest person in the room, even more so when there's no risk anybody can give them a well-deserved punch in the nose. Certainly you should always be on the alert for the last, but the internet tends to bring them all out of the woodwork. And quite frankly in this day and age most anyone who exposes themselves to the world needs to accept that. It is unfortunate, but there have always been assholes in life, and celebrities of all stripes have always had to deal with more than their fair share.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
They ARE treating them as actual threats.
They are choosing that their lives are worth more than the games and quitting the industry.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Yes. You should quit your job so your family can't get food to eat or keep a roof over their heads because the company you work for made a sub-par computer game.
Perspective, people.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
The comments of Abusive Fans break upon my hardened exoskeleton and run from its glistening laser-proof hydrophobic exterior like water from a duck. Where some see the unintelligible rage irrational, I value even the most outrageous of critique. You see, the unrefined individuals are like apes: Not able to speak the evolved language of mechanic design, plot pacing, etc., they hoot, holler and sling excrement instead. Hidden within are kernels of truth, like corn. It is a vile deed to dissect the primitive outbursts and translate them into terms of creative construction, but if you can do this, then you will see at least why they are so revolting. To me it is valuable input -- Another disgusting part of how the sausage gets made.
My advice would be, if you're not already making games then you may not be cut out for making games. For instance: As a kid did you ever make your own board game? Eg: bend a paper clip in a T for a base and use paper cut-outs for custom table-top insurgency, or to add a new unit to an existing game... draw new levels for platformers and play them using strings to measure jump limits, or something similar? You see, it's easy to turn the desire to design games into actual games, but you must be committed enough to do so.
When I first saw an arcade game I was amazed: I too wanted to know how they did that! I had to harness that power. I got my first PC, there was no Internet or books on coding in my library (especially not game making), and still no one could keep me from teaching myself to program and make games while other kids were still learning their multiplication tables. Contrast this with the recent vocal ragequitter: Phil Fish. He loved designing games, but did not have the drive enough to learn how to make them without relying on others to do so. A very frustrating position to be in, especially if you are outwardly abrasive.
Nowadays there are free game engines, and hardware is so fast you don't have to do freaky things like execute assembly code in the frame buffer to pull off smooth scrolling... Nowadays every child has free tutorials, free instructions, free compilers (a C compiler cost me half a hundred mowed lawns), even free game assets.
It's not so much a career path as an inherent component of life, to most gamedevs I know -- Drop them in a wilderness for a few weeks and there will be a new stategy game in the sand made of sticks and stones; Their starved body will be guarding the charcoal rule set scratched on tree bark, and they'll refuse to be rescued unless they can take the game with them. The point is, they didn't just decide to try making games at some point in their college life, or after winning a government grant (like Fish) -- Instead, no one could ever stop them from making games.
So, unless you're TRULY, and I mean TRULY in love with making games, I would actually advise against it. It's hard thankless tedious work and it's only the love for game making that makes it seem rewarding. You'll make far more money coding in almost any other field, the hours will be better, the work will be easier too -- You can even do many things game devs do without making games, and it'll be a better job: I did acoustical engineering and noise abatement, got to play with mapping 3D stuff with microphones and real life shotgun-shell cannons for echo-location noise generators, overlay sound maps to spot noise problems in factories in real time with a ultra-portable PC and 3D augmented reality glasses. The tech was cool, way more pay, but left no time for making games, so I quit; Now that's sick!
Even the most capable, experienced and creative folks become empty burned out husks giving birth to a game. Only a severe mental-condition lets them brave harshest of criticism from everyone else in life, and makes them enjoy making games above almost all else; That perverse love of creati
"Did you read the article?"
Fucking newfag
When you are directly responsible for penning one of the worst stories in video game history, do so for a reasonably popular (to-be) game franchise, and then vehemently try and defend that story - constantly shifting the blame away from yourself - you're going to tick people off. Especially when you're also going on about how you don't like 'video games', while making a story for a... video game. And its a really, really, dumb idea to pull sexism as a defensive argument - but thats exactly what she did as well.
I'm surprised she wasn't fired; but then again 'deciding to leave' and 'getting fired' are sometimes the same thing. Had she/bioware acknowledged the story + game was a fuckup, then most people would've gone away. Just shutting up at this disaster would've been an improvement.
if you're a one-man show you have two paths:
1. You do it for money and then you suck it up.
2. You do it for fun and then you don't care. There's no official community. You put a fake/unmonitored e-mail address as contact and release what you want, how you want it.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
They are not 'making something nice for you' out of the goodness of their hearts. They are doing a JOB to get PAID.
Just because its 'just games' doesn't give anyone a pass here.
The video game industry has an extra negative on top of all the usual product concerns too. At least in the usa.. Once they have your money. You WILL NOT be getting it back. Period. End of story.
The number of people who actually get refunds on software and games is shockingly low. So customers have no other recourse than to vent. They got ripped off. And there's fuck all they can do about it but piss and moan at anyone they can. And that means at you. the low paid 'i just work here' guy.
If you're just a cog of a machine. Don't be suprised when people hate, loath, despise that machine. After it took their money, lied to them and fucked them over.
If you take a job in that industry you better be ready for it.
Death threats are not criticism.
Assassination, however, is the ultimate form of censorship.
What, you'd rather just let everyone burn to death without warning? What the hell is wrong with you?
If violent language is happening after people leave their virtual worlds, then there's some merit to accusations that violent behaviour or actions can also be carried over to real world.
It's highly unlikely that there is any merit.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Heck, there have been people who have been killed or at least forced (from their perspective) into suicide.
The minuscule minority, you mean?
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
those who want to ban these games gain moral authority
What? Those who want to violate people's freedoms will never gain moral authority.
"Blaming the victim" isn't always what it seems. Sometimes the victim really is an imbecile (though that doesn't mean the one who victimized them should be let go)... but I don't agree that they are in this case.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
I worked fast food before, and at another time, tier 1 help desk for a large telco. I never got death threats. Not saying they don't happen, but it's very rare, as you would expect it to be.
What's So Mo?
Or he's one of the pricks that doles out death threats to devs because he's pissed that he no longer dominates the score boards since they "nerfed" his favourite weapon and he's come to the realization that he had no skill at all to begin with and that it was all based on exploitation of buggy game mechanics.
Are they really that easy to upset?
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Now you're just rationalizing.
By saying he's rationalizing, you're rationalizing.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
If you're gonna be a rock star, you're gonna attract some crazy folks. If your game promotes fierce competition and cheaters abound, you're gonna get crazies that are used to breaking the rules and put in a unbalnaced number of hours into the system you've designed. If your marketing is over the top, the crazies will respond in kind. If your goal is to make a game so addictive that there will be an economic impact, your gonna get addict crazies.
Of course abuse isn't justified to the sane, but building a system that attracts or creates crazies, what do you expect? This isn't just a game problem, system designers typically are not interested in being responsible for what the system does to the actors. Financial institutions use this to produce an endless supply of employees they can fire in order to protect the company.
Heck, there have been people who have been killed or at least forced (from their perspective) into suicide.
The minuscule minority, you mean?
If ANYBODY commits suicide as a result of player actions, I think that is far too much. What kind of callous individual are you to think that it is acceptable to be promoting somebody else's death?
Geez, you've got to be one cold hearted bastard to be thinking this is something remotely acceptable. This kind of cyber bulling can and should be criminally prosecuted with manslaughter charges pressed against those who participate in this kind of action. Just because "it was a game" doesn't cut it at all.
Besides, it has been criminally prosecuted.
In other words, your statement previously made is simply invalid. I'll also point out that putting in a fake or unmonitored e-mail address can land you in a huge pile of legal trouble when you are "notified" about stuff that really is important (like a court summons or some other legal notice) and you fail to pay attention.
In short, a person following your advise here would just be screwed.
You can make the contact information be a snail-mail address or have the person make some kind of extra hard step to contact you (thus dodging the legal contact requirements) and being a heartless bastard about what anybody else thinks of what you are doing is certainly legally OK. Regardless, you should be aware of what your customers think of you and your products, otherwise you will eventually go out of business or drift into irrelevancy.
If you are doing this for fun and giggles, eventually you will get tired of whatever it is that you are doing and move on, in which case there might as well not even be a fan community for you to worry about. They will just go about their business and copy all of your stuff, just like what happened to Infiniminer.
What kind of callous individual are you to think that it is acceptable to be promoting somebody else's death?
How many kinds are there? What are my available choices here?
This kind of cyber bulling can and should be criminally prosecuted with manslaughter charges pressed against those who participate in this kind of action.
I disagree. I think rather than resorting to censorship and/or scrapping freedom of speech (Don't bother with fire in a crowded theater analogies; I disagree with that sort of logic too.), we should just accept that casualties sometimes happen. I don't think molesting people at airports is a valid response to terrorism, and I would think that way even if the TSA were effective.
Besides, it has been criminally prosecuted.
And?
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
I have nothing at all against devs making this decision. I meant that *law enforcement* should be doing something about this. If someone made these threats over the phone, they'd be arrested. People need to get it through their skulls that the internet is not a free pass to do anything.
You might want to re-read this thread, because everyone here is went off the deep 'death threats is the only thing devs get' end. Death threats are bad, no shit, but just because some not told you to off yourself I shouldn't be able to tell you that your game sucks balls and is about as much fun as drinking gasoline?! FTS
It is very clear that you have never worked in support.
>>>Another entertainment industry that treats its customers with contempt would be the music industry.
Point taken.
You are probably right, I would ask for a manager and then yell at the manager instead. So would most people. Get real.
Real threats of violence? Please. If I threaten to kill you for making this post, one AC to another AC, it is clearly SERIOUS BUSINESS?!?
Now that is the $50,000 question isn't it? But the basic fact is that's a risk *everyone* lives with. And yes, celebrities do have to deal with a much higher number of crazies - it's all part and parcel with the whole "lots of people know (of) me" quality known as fame. If there's a particular problem here it's that game developers/artists/etc are a bit of an odd bunch bunch themselves, don't really know how to deal with fame, and generally speaking don't get paid enough to hire a protective entourage.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Except if you go to gaming forums, the amount of abusive posters is a sizeable fraction. Either all the happy gamers are not posting ever, or people just go into rage mode online. Yes the death threats are low but the negativity is rampant. And advice of "you shouldn't be a game dev without a thick skin" does not help the problem. Who wants to be in an industry where they know they'll regularly get abuse? It's much simpler to get a job somewhere else, especially as being a game developer is already a highly stressful job even on good days.
But new programmers are going to avoid getting a job with games, older programmers are going to be more likely to accept the job offers with less stressful industries, etc. You really only get one or two people in a game company that have "vision", everyone else is there to have a job. I'm not in games, but if I started getting regular abusive email from customers I'd seriously be considering a job change.
The "game developers" are an amorphous entity. Forum posters will blame "the devs" without knowing who the exact person responsible is, and will go batshit crazy over the most trivial of changes. The guy who draws textures will post and people will see the name in a different color and know he's one of "the devs" and start sending abuse about game play changes.
Let's face it. The vast majority of gamers have zero social skills. They do not know how to politely discuss anything. This is just like road rage, they may seem like nice people if you meet them on the street but they start popping veins when they get behind a keyboard.
And too many of these players can separate the real world from the game world; their rage filled trash talking in-game is continued on the gaming forums because they don't see the dividing line.
I think Misery by Stephen King is appropriate here. I wonder if King got enough vitriol filled "fan" mail that he figured he could have a book about a deranged fan.
Imagine if you're the TV writer who makes the decision to kill off Darryl Dixon, hypothetically. That person would want to hire some body guards first.
The supermarket stuff does happen actually. People will complain loudly to the checkout clerk about higher prices as if the clerk was the decision maker.
I got a large earful of abuse in person once from someone who thought I was just another salesman sent to placate him until he figured out I was actually able to help him at which point he became nice. But the abuse I got at first was very unnerving. If I had been in sales and was dealing with that regularly I'd have changed careers.
Though if the person was screaming at the nametag wearer because the lithium prescription wasn't ready yet, I could understand it. For everyone else there's no excuse.
No, you are directing it at a person who is not at all responsible for your problem. The management does not go around to all the minimum wage workers and ask them how the customer feedback was on that day. Yelling at them accomplishes nothing whatsoever except to give you the joy of abusing a human being. It's easier to abuse the minimum worker because you know that if you abuse the CEO of the company that the cops would be called.
First get a job working for one of those companies as a minimum wage flunky being abused by management daily before you decide that it's appropriate to fling abuse from the customer side as well.
When I was making games, I didn't hear the fans. Not one time. I had my head down, programming. The upper-middle management was the bane of my existence, not fans. Who else can successfully jump from studio to studio, blaming failures on people who actually make the game, while simultaneously making ridiculous demands at impossible timeframes. Don't like it? You're not a team player and we're going to put you on a 'performance improvement plan.'
I work for Microsoft.
I have never in my life received an actual death threat, and I have a feeling the products I work on are used by more people than what play Call of Duty. It's not a matter of "just ignore them", it's more of a matter that this kind of reaction can be received for any work of mostly non-offensive (not all of CoD applies here) art.
More likely, its just that people don't know who you are. Game Development shops have a bit more cult of personality about them, as they tend to have credit screens like movies, not like office products. I can assure you that if you, say, work on exchange, you have had many people wish you dead, just most people don't know how to inform you of their desire ;)
There's some truth to this but it comes with some logic behind it as well (all somewhat related and rarely will you likely find any one being the solo reason for any nerf):
1) Sampling bias. Most people don't complain when their class gets buffed. Most people DO complain when their class gets nerfed. So you tend to hear a LOT more about the nerfs than you do about the buffs.
2) Its easier to nerf 1 class than it is to buff 9 classes. These companies have a particular target in mind (whether it be time, # potions you use, minimum level to succeed, whatever) and if they raised all 9 to a new target it would require rebalancing the entire game, whereas bringing an outlier back into balance requires work on a single class.
3) Players are smart. There may be unforeseen interactions between skills or equipment that nobody (devs, QA or beta testers) realized prior to release that end up making specific characters far more powerful than expected when somebody discovers the magic button sequence. There are likely similar interactions that can make your character severely underpowered but those are self-compensating by the fact that nobody would bother using them except as a joke.
Class balance (or weapon balance or skill balance or whatever your game requires) is not an easy task. Unfortunately the people who bitch the loudest rarely have much concept of what the changes they're requesting would actually imply for the game beyond "I W4NTZ MOAR P0WARZ." At the very least, they generally forget that such buffs would just put pressure on everyone else to choose the same character makeup and they'd still be on a level playing field.
That said, nobody's perfect even when you've got the resources and (presumed) QA power of a juggernaut like Blizzard. They've fucked up before. They will again. Its human nature. They do have a tendency to make their new classes OP though (can't speak for other companies/games) and I'm not entirely convinced its by accident -- it could be partly in order to encourage a useful number of players to bother going to the hassle of class changing. Of course we've only got two sample points so far (DK, Monk) so take that suggestion with a gigantic grain of salt.
I work in the video game industry and have experienced this first hand.
A few years back we shipped the latest instalment of a popular game franchise. Our online publishing partner, who won't be named but their name rhymes with TONY borked the capacity planning for game servers based on their projected demand which was 10x less than what we saw on launch day.
Their servers crashed and the fans came down on us like the fist of an angry deity.
The online abuse was one thing -- being slagged in the forums and on YouTube was to be expected. What we didn't expect was how quickly certain fans escalated their abuse.
It began with complaints to the Better Business Bureau -- complaints that we'd ripped people off by selling them a game that was unplayable. This was annoying but not unexpected.
Then the calls started when one fan found our front desk number and hundreds of frustrated teenage boys began calling, threatening to rape and murder our receptionist and anyone else who was involved in the development if the game. To her credit, she handled them with aplomb but when someone posted our office address, the "fans" began to send "gift baskets." Boxes full of animal (we hope) feces, soiled XXL BVDs, and rotten food. One fan waited outside the office, then confronted her. That was the last straw and she understandably quit the next day.
The most unsettling instance happened when I was walking towards the front door, a police car pulled up and demanded to know if I was an employee of the studio. The officer got out of his cruiser and adopted an intimidating demeanour suggesting that we should fix the "god-dam" game and stop ripping off gamers. When cops start stalking you, you know it's time to find a new line of work.
People need to lighten up. It's a game. Not your real life.
Mostly I agree with you, but this attitude has got to go. This isn't a game of Risk when your little brother tosses the board after you sweep South America. These games are more than "just games" -- especially MMOs but aspects arise in any game with any sort of permanent tracking/image building.
They're hobbies that people dedicate hundreds or thousands of hours of their lives into. If you knew a model train enthusiast who sunk 5 years and a few thousand $ in an amazing train set, you'd probably sympathize with him if it got ruined. Why is it so hard to sympathize with someone who's sunk 5 years and a few thousand $ into building their game persona?
The "its just a game" attitude is one of the biggest roadblocks to gaming ever being seen as a mature industry. We won't have that as long as we implicitly assume gamers are in some way just being childish and that games wouldn't really matter to them if they "grew up." It might not be "real life" (whatever that's supposed to mean in our modern everything-online world) but its still their life.
From what I've seen, this is mostly because of the overwhelming number of sequels being developed. People played and loved the first game (or ten) in the series so they expect the sequel to be good.
Compare the amount of flak something like Star Wars: The Old Republic took in comparison to a standalone game like Bastion or Minecraft. When you have a winning set of mechanics and decide to change it up for the sequel, people expect it to be an improvement rather than a step backward.
I find nothing unreasonable there at all.
Oh, no, they do, therefore the actions of that person is not the action of the corporation. But then your diatribe against those beratinc corps with "They're made of people, they don;t actually exist" when saying corporations MUST be allowed to donate to political campaigns falls down: the people in there don't all have the same say in what the corporation does.
Do you think you could make your mind up about them?
What about the "Hans shot first" controversy?
I knew it! Those pesky Nazis were behind every evil deed in the last century!!
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Yes - self-censorship. The internal voice that says, or should say, "This is something that should not be said to another person, since I (ideally) don't want to be a jack ass".
Hah! Such lofty (and worthwhile) ideals crumble to dust in the terrible reality of the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
That is all fine and well if money is the the only investment the customer does.
It is a bit like if you are planning to go on vacation on Bahamas. Then at the last moment you get to know that the flight isn't going to Bahamas at all but to Algeria.
You decide to not travel at all since you don't want to go to Algeria. No money spent so it's not really a big deal, is it?
The problem is that now you vacation plans are cancelled. The money isn't the issue, you were more than willing to spend those on the trip but now the trip you planned doesn't exist anymore.
Yep, a travel agency that tried to pull a stunt like that will likely get a fair amount of angry letters and death threats.
For the last 15 years I have been frustrated by what I have been seeing in games with a few exceptions most games I would describe as everquest clones heavy on simple single cell quest lines "go kill this and you get this" hack and slash heavy worlds with much of the budget spent on the graphics and not the content. even the brain of the mob/npc has changed little in 15 years perceive/advance/attack or simpleton/idiot AI. there have been more and more epic failures in recent years like star wars galaxies and star trek online and age of conan I use to be a game subscriber but ive gotten so frustrated and BORED with the game content that I ceased to subscribe to any game at all rather than that pay to the game that sucks the least.
I have no confidence in developers to be creative or innovative .
and it is just a fact that the loudest people get listened to I am an explorer/builder but the pvp and hack and slashers out for dumbed down arcade style content usually win out.
even EVERQUEST NEXT has some revolutionary ideas that have been on my personal bucket list for years it also has the look and feel of a Disney cartoon with ludicrous looking spell effects like ti was built for a 10 year old and not a gaming community that has grown up. a magic spell does not have to look like a stupid fireworks show you get mobs and several players going and your screen is just a blob of light and color.
Nope, but she wasn't an AC, douchebag, she was an identifiable person being threatened by people who knew where she and her family lived. Try again.
I disagree. I think rather than resorting to censorship and/or scrapping freedom of speech (Don't bother with fire in a crowded theater analogies; I disagree with that sort of logic too.), we should just accept that casualties sometimes happen. I don't think molesting people at airports is a valid response to terrorism, and I would think that way even if the TSA were effective.
I really hope we are passing each other in terms of what we are talking about here.
This is about people being jackasses and saying extremely mean things, acting like jerks, and being classic trolls on top of making death threats here. This has nothing to do with "free speech" and sure as hell isn't censorship. This is taking people who are acting like a bunch of criminals because they are criminals and violating ethical standards that would not be tolerated at all if you were standing face to face with them.
I still can't possibly believe you support having people die because of your actions, or that you wouldn't lift a finger to try to prevent their death. Seriously, you have got to be one of the most vile souls I can possibly imagine just to think this kind of thing is remotely acceptable.
The choice here is to behave yourself and actually realize that what you type on a forum or in a game might actually have some real-world consequences, where real people can be hurt and hurt profoundly.
WAKE UP AND SEE WHAT YOU ARE TYPING!
Geez, I'm not supporting death squads or for even broad monitoring of network activity. I am asking that if somebody crosses the threshold of being a jackass that such a person can be punished for their actions. Freedom of speech doesn't give you the freedom to hurt people, say things that are patently false, and to besmirch the reputation of another person. This doesn't require new laws to be passed, but rather to have existing laws be enforced in spite of the fact it is an on-line environment.
This is about people being jackasses and saying extremely mean things
Oh, no! Anything but that! That's not subjective at all!
acting like jerks
That's completely objective.
and being classic trolls on top of making death threats here.
Right.
This has nothing to do with "free speech"
To me, it certainly does. Of course, this isn't the first time people have tried to claim that anything they don't like isn't "free speech."
Seriously, you have got to be one of the most vile souls I can possibly imagine just to think this kind of thing is remotely acceptable.
I suspect you haven't met many "vile souls," (whatever the hell that subjective garbage even means) then.
In my opinion, people who want safety above all else are the vile ones.
This is taking people who are acting like a bunch of criminals because they are criminals and violating ethical standards that would not be tolerated at all if you were standing face to face with them.
Criminals? Do you think I care about laws I believe are morally wrong? As for ethical standards, well, I don't see how that's relevant at all. I don't see how the actions people would take if these things were said to their faces are relevant, either.
The choice here is to behave yourself and actually realize that what you type on a forum or in a game might actually have some real-world consequences, where real people can be hurt and hurt profoundly.
That's extremely vague. I have an idea I believe is better: Stop being so easily offended.
Geez, I'm not supporting death squads or for even broad monitoring of network activity.
And yet, to me, you're simply anti-freedom.
Freedom of speech doesn't give you the freedom to hurt people, say things that are patently false, and to besmirch the reputation of another person.
It does to me, even if I choose not to partake in those activities. And really, what does and doesn't "hurt" a person differs from person to person.
This doesn't require new laws to be passed, but rather to have existing laws be enforced in spite of the fact it is an on-line environment.
Oh, I'm quite aware that there are many laws I disagree with on the books.
By the way, don't bother trying to say that I would feel differently were I in a different situation than I am currently in, because that's completely irrelevant, even if true.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Bullshit Toady One and Zach do just fine. Their community is generally less abusive than wows.
But lets face it WoW / Blizz deserves what it gets for catering to the lowest common denominator (exceptions noted). Etc... and the myriad facebook games.
I like exchange.... so kudos to whoever did that.
And its just propaganda for online censorship of freedom of expression. Death threats aren't the main subject, nor are they even a problem as there is already framework in place to deal with such speech.
Pretty soon it will be illegal to "criticize" any works without an agreement in writing from a pair of lawyers and "speech insurance". At the rate people are loosing their shit.
A bit of advice: Don't piss-off the paying customers...
Only a reasonable customer is always right
Worse then that, in other industries when the product isn't up to quality, you return it and get your money back. In the game industry on the other side refunds are generally not only not given, the industry is also putting in all kinds of locks to prevent you from executing your right to sell the game used.
They are not 'making something nice for you' out of the goodness of their hearts. They are doing a JOB to get PAID.
You're one of those people who bitches out waitresses when the kitchen staff screws up, aren't you? Just because you are paying someone money doesn't give you the right to be a jerk to them for things that aren't their fault.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
How much does this actually happen? Really?
Look at the Sim City 3 launch issues. I work in a store that sells PC games, and I still sold-out of it. People still bought it in droves, and it's presence in the news media made it sell more. This is sales beyond the pre-orders.
Part of the problem is that they can get away with it. The developers aren't held accountable for crappy products, where in any other industry, they would be. If i bought a car with a GPS that failed due to all the other GPS devices the manufacturer made connecting to the network at once, I think it's reasonable to expect a recall and a fix. Don't you? You'll have to come up with your own reason why I couldn't test the GPS during the test-drive, but i couldn't test-drive Sim City 3 either.
Yeah, the death threats and the barrage of anonymous coward fuckwads like myself don't help, but neither does preaching your bullspit about voting with your wallet.
Riot has just released the spell demo video of the new champion - Lucian, the Purifier. It shows the simple operation and skill collocation of Lucian in the video.
Watch the vidoe here: http://lol.gameguyz.com/news/news/champion-demo-lucian-the-purifier.html
gameguyz
not a developer problem, i could elaborate on this like say
.. bullshit (...)
...
you get abuse everywhere but
in fact you do so
its a community problem, if you want a weak game where government needs to interfere you can just live
here , in the streets or at home
really
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?