I have followed dreams that became unsatisfying. But I can tell you life can survive a dream. And enjoying life doesn't have to be difficult. I did do some indie game work but because of my own incompetence I could not make sense of the business. Fortunately I have gathered skills which had value elsewhere. And you can always have the satisfaction of knowing what the dream really was all about. Sadly most of us never even try.
The problem of game developers receiving abusive messages
31–40 of 174 posts
Re: The problem of game developers receiving abusive messages
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did you read my comment? “Barring those so small they can’t hire someone to run interference,” Let’s both appreciate the moment.
You're assuming that game developers want to live in some sort of isolated ivory tower. Everyone I knew who got into the industry did it to share the joy that gaming brought them to other people. It's an explicitly social industry in that respect. Also, I don't know of a single place that can afford to run interference for every single dev. Even on the large AAA stuff I worked on we were lucky to have 1 or 2 marketin…
I’m assuming no such thing. I’m saying this is a “have your cake and eat it too” issue. Either you’re accessible to millions or you arent, and that choice comes with benefits and drawbacks. If one can’t handle the drawbacks of being publicly accessible to millions, one should go to great pains to prevent that, rather than lamenting the inevitable - and I do mean inevitable - long tail of jerks.
And when I say “run interference,” I mean “handle all public interactions for the product, which your devs shouldn’t be involved in at all, because they’re devs, not marketers.”
Re: The problem of game developers receiving abusive messages
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
The first tweet they link to is directed at the makers of 'Firewatch', which doesn't have any in-app purchases at all. http://www.firewatchgame.com/ If Firewatch isn't safe, I'm not sure anything is.
The Firewatch devs took a public stand on the Pewdiepie drama and got hit in the head as a result. It went far beyond Twitter harassment and their Steam reviews got bombarded with negative reviews. The hate campaign they got has nothing to do with their development or business practices.
Thanks for providing some context. I don't know what they expected getting involved in YouTube drama (which is essentially like pissing in a sea of piss).
Re: The problem of game developers receiving abusive messages
#34"I want [something] and I want it now." This is what I hear from reading most of those angry tweets/comments. Sadly, sometimes they are simply shouting because the game is not what they were hyped about. Maybe we are over-hyping games to get pre-orders in? I remember a time when the first time I heard about a game was when it was actually on the store shelves (good ol' boxes). Now there are dev-blogs and the likes ye…
The thing is marketing a game does not justify death threats, rape threats, doxxing or even personal insults. Poor user reviews, not buying a game, refunds and civil complaints should be enough to signal that a game isn't good enough. If making a game to the best of your ability, marketing it, and not quite hitting the bar for a subset of gamers justifies abuse then I'd recommend developers stop making games. There are better job options that don't subject people to that level of abuse. If you made abusive comments toward startup founders because the MVP doesn't live up to the hype of the landing page on HN you'd get banned or at least heavily downvoted, I don't see why game developers should tolerate that kind of abuse.
Re: The problem of game developers receiving abusive messages
#35I don’t understand what forces devs to participate directly in this public discourse. Barring those so small they can’t hire someone to run interference, why precisely are you publicly interacting with your customers? Anyone who works with the mass public, be they cashiers or physicians, knows damn well that the Public is terrible. Don’t give them a hotline into your head.
Promotion is vital to an indie game-dev. If they don't spread information about their game via the usual social media channels it will sit untouched and unknown. It is a super necessary part of modern entrepreneurship.
Re: The problem of game developers receiving abusive messages
#36If this is such a problem, how about making a game that teaches people to show a little class instead of yet another 8-bit remake for supercomputers? Reminds me of that Don Daglow talk[0] at GDC Europe where he basically told them that Americans are idiots and how to cater to that. I would like to think that most people would do something less cynical if they had come to the same conclusion -- like Wozniak[1] did. [0…
> that teaches people to show a little class
Are you serious? This will get you labeled as a "SJW" and then the crazies will DEFINITELY flock to you and try to Dox you. That's the easiest way to get a target painted on your back.
If there's one thing on the internet that is dangerous, it is deciding to have social commentary in today's political environment.
Re: The problem of game developers receiving abusive messages
#37I don’t understand what forces devs to participate directly in this public discourse. Barring those so small they can’t hire someone to run interference, why precisely are you publicly interacting with your customers? Anyone who works with the mass public, be they cashiers or physicians, knows damn well that the Public is terrible. Don’t give them a hotline into your head.
Games have credits. Developers have Twitter accounts. Devs are excited about their work, share what they are working on. The devs are not seeking these interactions at all.
It's a big deal that games have credits, because they didn't always. However, as a person who works on popularish internet services, I'm pretty happy my name isn't published as a developer of it -- even just polite people trying to get customer support would be an avalanche of communications anywhere I use my name (although I share a name with a Pulitzer Prize winning author, so it's harder to find me).
Re: The problem of game developers receiving abusive messages
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're assuming that game developers want to live in some sort of isolated ivory tower. Everyone I knew who got into the industry did it to share the joy that gaming brought them to other people. It's an explicitly social industry in that respect. Also, I don't know of a single place that can afford to run interference for every single dev. Even on the large AAA stuff I worked on we were lucky to have 1 or 2 marketin…
I’m assuming no such thing. I’m saying this is a “have your cake and eat it too” issue. Either you’re accessible to millions or you arent, and that choice comes with benefits and drawbacks. If one can’t handle the drawbacks of being publicly accessible to millions, one should go to great pains to prevent that, rather than lamenting the inevitable - and I do mean inevitable - long tail of jerks. And when I say “run in…
While what you're saying may be true, maybe we should be questioning why this kind of communication is considered acceptable and without consequence in the gaming community.
Re: The problem of game developers receiving abusive messages
#39I had a long phone conversation recently with a game industry friend who had the misfortune of being involved in multiple games that became targets of abuse. I had asked him for advice about potentially making some youtube videos about game design, including f2p game design (which I have substantial expertise in).
He warned me that depending on the approach, even implying that I thought certain types of games or monetization weren't the worst thing since cancer could result in hate mail, doxxing, death threats to myself and my family, etc. He had been through that experience and wanted to warn me against it.
Despite being involved in some very popular f2p mobile games, the worst abuse I've had was someone sending me a DM on Reddit saying I should get cancer.
I don't really know what, if any, the solution here is. I've been able to ignore the worst of what I've taken because it's been pretty mild compared to what's possible. It makes me wonder - if I were the public face of a game that really, really pissed off the trolls, would I be able to emotionally handle the result? I have no idea and I don't want to find out.
Re: The problem of game developers receiving abusive messages
#40I don’t understand what forces devs to participate directly in this public discourse. Barring those so small they can’t hire someone to run interference, why precisely are you publicly interacting with your customers? Anyone who works with the mass public, be they cashiers or physicians, knows damn well that the Public is terrible. Don’t give them a hotline into your head.
Unless you have unlimited time or financial resources, you can't make a great game without having a dialog with your audience. Game developers' instincts are not infallible and they need to be able to get feedback and suggestions from their audience. Unfortunately, some of that feedback might be 'die in a fire.'
edit: And there's also the matter of games with live service components, where you're in a state of constantly tweaking the game based on feedback, potentially for years.