The problem of game developers receiving abusive messages • Hacker News Board

Re: The problem of game developers receiving abusive messages

#131

Post by DanBC » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 11:35 AM UTC

jancsika wrote: post #4

Do all game devs experience similar types of abuse, or only the devs of games with environments in which the developer's company is attempting to monetize the player as they move through the game? For example-- there is some beautiful sidescroller game I've seen where the animation looks like old-school Fleischer studio cartoons. Do devs of games like that get abuse from players, too?

Let's assume for the moment that players only send abuse to devs who excessively monetize games (but you're wrong about that): it's still wrong. It's still not acceptable to tell someone that they should die in a fire.

Re: The problem of game developers receiving abusive messages

#132

Post by jnwatson » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 11:54 AM UTC

collyw wrote: post #122

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience the more people pay you the better behaved they are, people who get things for free are the most entitled and abusive.

I would disagree based on experience at a previous workplace. We were paying a Salesforce consultancy a lot of money, so our technically clueless founders thought that gave them a licence to act like arseholes. One consultant had a nervous breakdown after a couple of months.

That’s a bit of a different relationship. The ability to fire the consultant changes the power dynamic.

Re: The problem of game developers receiving abusive messages

#133

Post by WillReplyfFood » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 11:59 AM UTC

swivelmaster wrote: post #47

QAPereo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Death threats and abuse are a non-starter, but working on making more addictive games-cum-casinos should probably come with polite disdain. Given that so much in gaming has become a money grab from kids and people wired to gamble is, a shame. So... death threats? Doxxing? Abuse? No, never. Respect for a good job well done? Also no. Hunting “whales” for vast profits is a good business model, but so is selling tobacco…

Not all of the games involved were mtx-based. One was more like "you screwed up the IP I love, die!" edit: Also, it is profoundly unhelpful to the discussion to say what you said, which is basically "Well, what did you expect, a pat on the back?" We're talking here about abuse, not constructive criticism. Here's an analogy: Nobody expects an Oscar for working on Transformers 6, but personally subjecting them to onlin…

Yes, the bad behaviour is well distributed allover the company. You cant blame a single gear for the functionality provided by the human-meat-grinder 40000.

If you really feel the need, blame the dedicated person for blaming, who gets a fortune for doing the Jesus Christ story as CEO.

Assaulting single persons, might be the only way to squeeze a touch of responsibility from a modern company. Touching a nerve is okay, when it leads to a thoroughly rotten teeth - like the pseudo moral everyone in the software world displays in this endless resultless discussions.

Oh, btw, in the next thread somebody is calling for goverment action against addicting games- and all those "abuse is evil" posters, will take a firm libertarian stand there.

If you systematicall disempower people, until only building a howling medieval mob remains- congrats, you reaached your destination.

Re: The problem of game developers receiving abusive messages

#134

Post by jnwatson » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 12:01 PM UTC

InclinedPlane wrote: post #24

dasil003 wrote: post #23

This is just an ugly side of humanity that has always been there, but is magnified by the combination of anonymity, disenfranchisement, and ever more addicting Skinner-box style entertainment. We are a tribal species; in the past this type of behavior would be socialized out of you or else you would be a recluse. You didn't have the opportunity to sit in your own filth and project your self-loathing onto anyone acros…

That's a cop-out. This isn't genetic, this isn't universal, this is a cultural trend.

I don’t think this is a trend at all. Just go to a baseball game and you’ll see plenty of people yelling invectives at the umpire and players. That’s not new at all.

Road rage is another related symptom. There’s something special about pseudo-anonymity than enables a small percentage of people to act like jerks.

The horrible comments are just a function of anonymity at scale.

Re: The problem of game developers receiving abusive messages

#135

Post by monkeywork » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 12:56 PM UTC

meheleventyone wrote: post #121

arkh wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just need to not give a fuck. It works for online interaction and it sure work for other parts of life. Care about what you can influence, don't about things you have no control over. Someone cut in front of you in traffic: good for them. Someone insults you: heh, must be their own insecurities showing. I think the only threshold for online interaction would be people threatening violence against you. If they do,…

I think this sort of thinking is far too fatalistic and basically throws people who cannot deal with abuse and hate under the bus to boot. The platforms hate and abuse are delivered on are currently under human control. The idea we have no control over whether or not we receive hate and abuse is simply not true. The solution, moderation, isn't even new and is a core feature of all polite online spaces. HN is a good e…

moderation will never stamp out but the tiniest of hate/ignorance that will come. the only thing that will work is removing the one thing the trolls feed on... your reaction.

Re: The problem of game developers receiving abusive messages

#136

Post by meheleventyone » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 12:59 PM UTC

EugeneOZ wrote: post #130

meheleventyone wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? In what world do people have to respond to unsolicited commentary?

In this one. If you really don't care about feedback and (polite and constructive) commentaries are unsolicited - you deserve hateful feedback.

I think this attitude is likely to achieve the polar opposite to what you say you'd like to happen.

Re: The problem of game developers receiving abusive messages

#137

Post by meheleventyone » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 1:04 PM UTC

monkeywork wrote: post #135

meheleventyone wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this sort of thinking is far too fatalistic and basically throws people who cannot deal with abuse and hate under the bus to boot. The platforms hate and abuse are delivered on are currently under human control. The idea we have no control over whether or not we receive hate and abuse is simply not true. The solution, moderation, isn't even new and is a core feature of all polite online spaces. HN is a good e…

moderation will never stamp out but the tiniest of hate/ignorance that will come. the only thing that will work is removing the one thing the trolls feed on... your reaction.

I think calling these people trolls misses a significant point that they feel their grievances are genuine. See a bunch of the comments below defending abuse as a legitimate response. This is way more about cultural norms in terms of what is an acceptable way to communicate and moderation is supremely effective at establishing them.

Hate and abuse are definitely hard or impossible to eradicate completely but we can do a lot better than current social media platforms and places like the Steam forums are doing.

Re: The problem of game developers receiving abusive messages

#138

Post by ManuelKiessling » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 1:12 PM UTC

user68858788 wrote: post #70

Up until about five years ago, I've only ever wanted to create and share video games. After a couple years doing it independently and getting my first professional game job, gamer gate happened. It's absolutely terrifying to see the lengths at which people will go to make someone's life a living hell. Every industry friend was affected, and reacted mostly by reducing their online presence, and I've done the same. Som…

As someone who heard and read about Gamer Gate, but not more, I'm genuinely curious: What exactly is it that GG did to people working in the industry? My understanding was that the two parties having a fight were female developers and game reviewers on one side and a horde of "young angry white males" on the other (at least if you simplify the whole thing enough).

And from this I understood that it was mostly the life of these females that was made a living hell. So, are you one of those female game developers, or did the mob turn against everyone creating games, regardless of gender?

I hope this doesn't come across stupid - it's just that it seems to be an extremely complex topic and I just want to understand it a bit more.

Re: The problem of game developers receiving abusive messages

#139

Post by Sir_Cmpwn » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 1:14 PM UTC

camus2 wrote: post #125

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #3

I got a glimpse of this working on my open source Minecraft clone, and it's at least half of the reason that game is sitting on the backburner. Gamers can be a pretty entitled group. I also see this in the rest of my open source work, to a lesser extent. On the whole I probably get slightly fewer "fuck you"s than I get "thank you"s.

> Gamers can be a pretty entitled group. Just like sport fans, moviegoers, fooding enthusiasts or people who buy books. In every circle you'll have a tiny loud minority who behaves like crap, it has nothing to do with gaming. You'd think people who buy books have a better education and behavior? People like J. K. Rowling or Stephen King have had plenty of stalkers and death threats, King wrote plenty of books about o…

In my experience gamers are a clear outlier.

Re: The problem of game developers receiving abusive messages

#140

Post by finnthehuman » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 1:23 PM UTC

xg15 wrote: post #112

Slight aside, but: > Would you sign up for a job where you get screamed at all day, every day? Why would you go through that, when there are a million other fields where that doesn’t happen? The amount of customer service rep/call center jobs we have answers this with a "Yes", I think. (Not taking into account the reasons people sign up for those jobs though. Probably not because it's their passion...)

When I was younger there was a popular line of thinking that the typical highschool job in customer service was where people learned to grow up into the kind of people that wouldn't yell at customer service. It sounded like the kind of thing that could be true, but was certainly the kind of thing you want to be true if you have one of those jobs. I've recently been thinking it has merit.

-Having someone directly in my face yelling at me over a couple of dollars made it a practical necessity to cultivate in myself an industrial-strength version of "you can't control other people, you can only control how you react to them." And that includes calibrating your level of fear to the actual level of risk. Even if all you are is a wimpy teen somehow made shift lead, ya gotta look a scary motherfucker in the eyes and tell them "No," when the only thing you've got to defend yourself is "Get out or we're calling the cops."

-My sense of how to treat others is based on concepts of shared humanity. When someone is screaming at you, there ain't time or good reason to try and empathize with them. But you can't stoop to their level, either. So peg a bare minimum for behavior as a personal standard, and then try to live up to the standard. -- Consequently, I don't understand the trendy ideas on empathizing that posit I have to cultivate a personal connection before I can determine "oh yeah, it turns out I shouldn't be a prick to this person, either."