Plague of game dev harassment erodes industry, spurs support groups

This is why I practically cringe at even calling myself a gamer. I don't want to be associated with the people that act this way...I work in an industry with extremely tough customers but they remain professional most of the time. I can't imagine dealing with the rabid breed of gamers that cross so many boundaries of human decency.

I'd like to see more devs/pubs/hardware companies ignore this vocal ilk because I have to wager that most of them are not contributing as much revenue as they are noise.

I'm with you TDrag.  Fanboyism and the resulting bullying that goes on within the gaming community is eroding my enjoyment of gaming.  The view of gamers from the outside looking in has gone from meek and shy introvert to jackass hiding behind a keyboard.  It's one thing to not like a direction they took with a game...it's another to bully developers and the like because you didn't like it.  Civility has gone out the window, because there are no reprocussions for verbal thug like behavior.

Not for nothing, there are jack asses on both sides. It is like that with everything in all walks of life.

I don't feel bad for some of these companies/people though. Some of them treat their customers like shit instead of clients. 

That is a very broad statement Tdrag, easily proved by googling the East India Company's treatment of the people of India. I imagine the slavers of the Royal African Company were awsome buisness partners for tirbal leaders in Africa. Hey how about Peter Minuit? Purdue Pharma produced and sold one of the most addictive pain killers ever and straight up lied about it. Because of this it directly created addicts. How many families were torn apart?

History is filled with easy examples for such a statement.

What I am talking about is much more simple. Execs that antagonize their customers are just as bad as the wackjobs that make the threats... I should have worded my origional statement better and I am sorry for that.

Quote:

he greatest threat to the video game industry may be some of its most impassioned fans. Increasingly, game developers are finding themselves under attack by some of the very people they devote their lives to entertaining. 

That statement is one thing I have a problem with. You're not devoting your life to entertaining anyone. You're being paid for your services, and if your game is a hit, quite substantially in fact. There's no sense in acting like a martyr. When you put yourself into the public eye, this is simply what you as a public figure have to expect. 

Death threats etc regretfully are standard fare for anyone in this day and age of internet anonymity. I myself would receive threats on a daily basis from players who were unhappy with being beaten in COD by myself or even someone on my friend's list. Most of these were laughable and I'm sure they represent quite a few of the "ominous" threats this article references. I am not in the public eye, nor am I responsible for the newest game about to hit the shelves, so I in no way think I receive as many death threats as those mentioned in the article. However, I would wager that most of the threats are baseless and without any real merit.

The article uses Phil Fish as an example which in an of itself should almost disqualify it as being anything but an industry fluff piece. I mean if anyone ever deserved to be told to go fuck himself, it was this piece of work. He made it his job to whine, and insult his fans on a daily basis and then pulled the cyber bully card when they turned on him and gave him his well deserved ridicule. Leaving the industry ( yeah, we'll see) and blaming it on the fans. 

While I agree it's despicable and certainly wrong, has there ever been a case of a developer actually being assaulted, raped, killed or even breathed on heavily? I would think that someone who is going into a career that depends on the internet and it's Timmies, would be prepared to suffer the slings and arrows of the great unwashed basement dwellers.

In the "Entertainment business" this is business as usual, and I'm very hard pressed to believe that any of these developers needs a support group to deal with online bullies. If they in fact, do need such a group I would recommend a new line of work. There will always be someone ready to step into the shoes of the put upon celebrity game designers and take one for the team.

In my opinion this article was spurred not by the death threats or threats of assault toward a developer. It's timing is pretty suspicious considering the recent surge of fans refusing to be pushed around by the large game companies, and the crushing defeat of the attempt to make gaming an all digital distribution network, which HEAVILY favors the developers over the consumer.

This outcry from the industry is far from surprising, once again trying to look like they are the put upon dregs, chained to their desks coding until their fingers bleed and deteriorate to bone all with only the thought of your enjoyment to sustain them. 

I think this has a lot more to do with whining about the fans steering the industry in the direction that benefits the fans over the developers, than it has to do with devs receiving any actual death threats. 

Good points Azure.

I'd simplify it by saying, if you don't want the attention, stay outta the limelight. It's quite easy to code anonymously. I think too many wanted rockstar notoriety and didn't contemplate the unintended consequences.

As for games forum boards and such, again, use a "board name" and go home at the end of the day. It's a job, It they think that's abusive, work a phone bank in customer service or collections.

I kinda agree with the hardcore wants versus what might be best for the ongoing product. You have to keep the door open for new gamers, or the franchise will die. Old Stan Lee used to say never give them what they think they want...

I have a problem with the "if you don't want the attention, stay out of the limelight" argument.  Take the Blizzard devs for World of Warcraft; years ago the only communication with players was the occasional "blue post" on the forums.  Nowadays, you find even the lead developer participating on Twitter.  I think it's great, from the point of view of understanding direction and design intent.

WoW in particular has a great theorycrafting community, that puts out some great articles (with things like objective evidence and testing) to display when things may not be working "as intended".  Those participants are rarely rude, derogetory or inappropriate in any communication to Blizzard.  Indeed, I'd say downright professional.  But there are asshat posters in there for sure. 

The point is, Blizzard got its devs to go out and interact with the community not so that it's developers get to pretend to be rockstars, but because it helps facilitate communication and engagement with the customer base.  It's like crowdsourcing troubleshooting and QA to Blizzard's benefit. 

The nature of having open communication in a many-to-few relationship where the many can be (and usually are) anonymous just means that you'll get the riff-raff and asshats throwing their shit around from their cage.  Virtual monkeys.  Just because that's going to happen as a consequence doesn't mean that it should be tolerated, doesn't mean that developers should "just accept it and move on", and it doesn't mean that in the desire to have a polite and civil society we shouldn't call out those douchebags and tell them that their behaviour is inappropriate.  While the road to hell may be paved with good intentions, it's apathy that delivers us there.

"If only I had an enemy bigger than my apathy I could have won"

-Mumford & Sons, I Gave You All

I agree that this kind of bullshit is par for the course for being in the limelight and agree that some game "celebrities" deal with the public better than others...but that doesn't make it right. And I don't think they should just suck it up and do their jobs. Baseless threats or not, I'm not going to point my finger at the victims. Nobody deserves to be treated like that. It's not a gray area.

Company forums are the only area developers will have any power to control negativity towards their game, every thing else is basically fair game. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and all of the miscellaneous forums that are out there grant trolls the ability to cause problems. There is no way to control this sort of activity.

While it may be distasteful to simply state they need to "suck it up", well that is what has to happen. These personal attacks will be the nature of things and you can't expect it will improve. As the world gets more connected, you can expect it only to get worse. If anything, I say protect yourself and keep out of forums and media if at all possible.

I do think that eventually we'll be seeing a story about a gamer that did take things too far and physically assualted an individual or company associated with their favorite game. Not a matter of "if" but "when".

There are people already being hired that have training in dealing with people online for these things. It's PR and PR people are usually pretty good at it.

On the other hand, how do you deal with someone deliberately setting out to cause issues? I keep picturing a Francis...

When you make something available to the general public, you have to expect a certain amount of hate to come your way, no matter what. This is especially true when your new product is a big change from what people expected to recieve. Unfortunately the current trend in gaming is to basically say "Fuck you" to the "hardcore" gamer and make games accessable to the more casual player.

The problem is the casual player isn't the guy on the gaming forum and putting 200+ hours into a game, he's the guy playing once a week with a buddy over so you never hear from him. So while the game may sell more it's just going to breed annoyance and hate mail from the audience they're not really interested in anyway. Maybe game devs simply need to grow a thicker skin. You're not gonna stop people being upset the game they waited a year for didn't turn out at all the way they expected it to, and you can't stop them complaining, so let them and move on.

Let's be honest. Gamers are going to whine and complain because X feature was taken from the game and they're going to bitch about it anywhere they can. But they bought the game, so you already got their money. Most of them will probably buy the DLC too, either because all their friends will or because it's a big name title and there's nothing else to play. And they'll buy the next game too in hopes what they didn't like will be fixed. Even if they don't like feature X, if it's the only game their friends are playing they'll still buy it anyway. So let em complain, give some vague hint that things might be addresed at some point and then forget about it.

I think the biggest thing I worry about with all of this is that it will be used as an excuse to push the government to censor the net and prosecute people for this sort of thing. It's a slippery slope and I think we've seen it happen more times than not, that once the door is open to censor and monitor a medium things quickly get out of control and innocent people get prosecuted. 

Interesting article, I know I'm going to be in the minority here, and flamed most likely with most of what I say, probably seen as illogical, *sigh* but oh well.

I feel bad for some of the people in this industry and while violence is never an answer, and I detest it, especially in the case of the CoD threats which were bullshit. However, some of these devs bring this on themselves. People in general behave this way, and to throw gamers under the bus, just angers me. Every industry deals with this and it's not new at all, the South Park creators, store owners, movie execs, bands, the fucking Post Office, they all have had death threats. It's everywhere I go, online and in real life, there's someone threatening violence to someone else, so why is it being in gaming such a shock to developers? It's not just the wimpy little nerds playing games anymore,all types of people play them now. They create products that enter the lives of millions of people, some of those people are very violent.

On top of that some devs like David Fish, who they mentioned as being bullied out of the industry, actually constantly attacked and made fun of people and his own customers on Twitter. You can't go throwing around insults joking or not, and then be shocked when you've struck a nerve with someone. I reference your mom jokes as an example, most people don't take them seriously. However, there are some that do, and will beat the shit out of someone who says it to them. Therefore, most people don't say them to others unless they know they can take it. When you say something on Twitter, even joking, it goes out to everyone, it's just asking for trouble. Twitter causes so many problems for people...

I watched him in the "Indie Game" documentary, and while I understood his frustrations completely, he still had this attitude of a spoiled sensitive little boy. He was on the verge of a mental breakdown from all the pressure that fans, and business partners alike put on him. That award he won off the tech demo just drove his ego through the roof, he honestly thought before his game was even finished, that a $15 game was going to make him and ex-partner millions. The Super Meat Boy team didn't act like that, yeah they wanted to make some money, but they mainly just wanted people to enjoy their game. All of Fish's issues and problems should've made him into a better person, but instead he turned his issues and frustrations onto others. This article does a good job of blaming "the crazy gamers", but some of these devs are just as fucking crazy themselves.

The Braid creator, in the film was whacked out too, and spent days going from forum to forum, arguing with gamers, so much so he became obsessed with it, started attacking others on the web. Why isn't that mentioned in the article? How about some of the famous Bioware employees, who worked on Dragon Age 2, when he took to the net and literally went off on fans, who were merely pointing out, that if a character had died by decapitation in the previous game, how could she be alive in the sequel. It was an oversight, and instead acknowlegding this, he went on a crazy rant. Cliffy B has also, been constantly on net conversations, throwing his opinions around on every single subject available, wanting constant attention, often saying things that piss most gamers off. When you're a public figure, you just can't do this stuff, you have to be above it. They can say things, but we can't?

It may be where I'm from and the environment I've grown up in, but I've seen people put other people in the hospital for the most stupid reasons. So why would I expect different from something like gaming? This is an issue for society as a whole, and to blame the more "hardcore" gamer is just another crap shot at them by the industry at large..

A good amount of gamers are pissed at this current moment in gaming, it's well known that most of the gaming industry doesn't take the game consumers seriously at all. This is what happens in an industry when consumers have no sort of power, say, or even rights. We can't return our products if we don't like them, they wanna get rid of renting and used games, the few things we do have to protect us at least a little bit from these companies. Everyday more and more companies, are trying to remove what little power we do have available. Just like with what MS just recently tried to do with their X1. I'm all for developers getting their money, but removing our rights is not the way to do it. Companies like EA, Capcom, continually try to rip off gamers, and suck them dry, they all want that Call of Duty/WoW money, and they're prepared to do whatever it takes to get it.

If companies wanna keep enforcing the fact that it's a business first, not art, gamers will start looking at it that way, and expect the same treatment, they get from other businesses, and will hold them liable to the same standards. When something becomes mostly about the money, it becomes something different, people get murdered all the time in other businesses, why should gaming be different? If someone sues over hot coffee, wet floors, they can sue over shit game endings. If someone rips me off at a local store with a shit product, I'm going to go back to confront them, and maybe whoop his ass, so he thinks twice about it next time.

Randy Pitchford even put an article that he found up on his Twitter awhile back, depicting several different methods, that developers can and have used to literally trick gamers out of their money. One method went as far as making the games just fun enough to get you hooked, then it secretly increased difficulty to impossible levels, until that person spends money, then it lowers it, and repeats the process. That's just one of many listed on the document, that Randy said was horrible, and not what gaming should be. (Even though Aliens:Colonial Marines was a huge ripoff) That's fucking ripoff games you see at carnivals, which often got the employee beat up.

People are paying money, money they earned with their blood, sweat, and tears, and when companies rip-off them off, there's nothing they can do, and people hate to feel powerless. They continue to cut content for dlc, deliver bugged and glitched games at full price, and want everyone to just accept it, fuck that. Yes, some devs don't deserve the threats, like I mentioned the CoD dev who, upped the reload times on the sniper by a fraction of a second. That's fucking retarded, but again it's something they should get used to, b/c there's no such thing as a safe job.

It is unarguably not right that anyone is threatened in anyway.

However, that is life. I feel threatened almost everyday, usually when out driving (in RL or with those nasty boys in 2O4F) and I don't need to join a help group or alert the cyber police.

If businesses are letting angry forum talk get in the way of actual business, then they deserve to go to the wall. What they do need to do is learn to take what is useful from the public discussion and discard and then manage the useless/negative.

Some do that well. Others, like individual human beings, do not get that a conversation is never one sided and our evolutionary/social upbringing quickly tells us whether we are being manipulated/lied to/ignored etc. When that happens, people get pissed off.

You'll never stop the obsessive fanboy types getting hot under the collar about some detail (of any magnitude). They may have valid points, but the bigger picture as many have pointed out, is increasing appeal. The Forza series and T10 as developers is absolutely an example of this. Most on the FM.net forums think they know what will make a successful sequel, but they are seeing it from a minority perspective. That's not to say I'm not totally righteous you T10 bar stewards ;)

We are seeing some painful lessons being learned by the industry, and occasionally not.

The original interview is provoking a debate here which is great.

Maybe some of us will consider more carefully what we post. Maybe some devs will reassess their relationship with their consumers. Hmmmmmm

Anyways, back to stitching these condor wings on my pigs.

Good points have been brought up for looking at it both ways, but again in-line with what TDrag said...death threats...the raping of your spouse...kidnapping/killing of your children is just out of line.  I don't care what field these people are in, they shouldn't have to receive those kind of threats.  I used to enjoy playing competitve type games such as CoD, but the language and communication of it has changed a lot in the last few years...and not for the better.  To those that say people need to just suck it up its part of life...why? Why should that just be a part of life?  In my opinion this is why we have people going in to schools, theatres and other public places and shooting anything that moves. $60.00 does not entitle you to tell someone that you're going to come into their house beat them till they can't move then do shit to their family in front of them.  No $ tag should ever entitle that.  Maybe its the people making the threats are the ones that need to suck it up and realize things aren't perfect....will never be perfect...and the world would be a better place without all the hate and violence.