The vitriol in this article is really hard to read. Watching a creator get attacked liked that is sad. I want to say something snarky like "that's what you get for having anonymous unmoderated comments" but honestly I just wish we could not be assholes.
“The joy of sharing has been driven from me“
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Re: “The joy of sharing has been driven from me“
#12I feel bad for him, but really the problem is he’s made a directorial mistake and it looks like the only point it’s gonna click is when the sales numbers hit. Will he realize his mistaken then or will he continue to blame the customer?
I could not agree more. A lot of game producers get this arrogant approach of: "Making games would be such awesome job if it wasn't for those pesky gamers". The question here is: "Is this a really innovative graphical design that will get praised by future generations but is misunderstood now" or "Is this just a bad decision that the creator is unwilling to own". I tend to think it's the latter. Ultimately the sales…
> Ultimately the sales will tell.
If you believe games are at all art, then they cannot ultimately be judged either by commercial or critical success, or even by whether they please their creator. There is something utterly subjective and nondeterminant in the evaluation of art.
Obviously, as humans we tend to evaluate the “success” of art on its long term impact. Commercial and critical failures in the short term can and have become treasured as masterpieces in the long term, and bestselling beloved work can turn out to be forgotten quickly.
Re: “The joy of sharing has been driven from me“
#13Seems he just found out how most people in the Internet don't produce anything worthwhile and yet feel entitled to bash everyone's else hard work.
Re: “The joy of sharing has been driven from me“
#14Gamers are the most entitled consumer group I've ever seen. It's astounding. Someone wants to create something, and there's just so much hate and negativity on something that people didn't even pay for.
I've seen it on HN also. Someone creates a thing, and then people pour out of the woodwork to lump horrible criticism. No one is asking for blind praise for what they create, but surely there's a middle ground between blind praise and mob bullying?
Re: “The joy of sharing has been driven from me“
#15I feel bad for him, but really the problem is he’s made a directorial mistake and it looks like the only point it’s gonna click is when the sales numbers hit. Will he realize his mistaken then or will he continue to blame the customer?
"continue to blame the customer?" He's never said that folks were wrong, or blamed anyone for anything. Seems to me like he just wanted folks to not be shitty.
Take, for example, this comment by someone calling themselves _Proud Retro Fascist_:
> Nice attempt at silencing critics. The game will fail because it is
> objectively hideous and you will only have yourself to blame.
>
> Inthe end all you will have achieved is killing off Monkey Island once more.
> This time permanently.
>
> All you had to do was make a game with an art style that appeals to
> everyone, whatever it might be. Instead, you opted for the most repugnant,
> revolting and hideous TRASH art style that anybody has ever bared witness to
> in a video game. You must be out of your mind.
>
> All said, try hiring good artists next time... if there is a next time, that
> is.
>
> RIP MONKEY ISLAND
Stay strong, Ron Gilbert, don't let the assholes get you down.
Re: “The joy of sharing has been driven from me“
#16I feel bad for him, but really the problem is he’s made a directorial mistake and it looks like the only point it’s gonna click is when the sales numbers hit. Will he realize his mistaken then or will he continue to blame the customer?
Could you summarize what you feel the mistake is? Normally I'd RTFA but in this case it's a lot of arguing in threads and I'm missing context.
Re: “The joy of sharing has been driven from me“
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
Disagreeing with the art direction is one thing but people are going beyond constructive criticism by being toxic and throwing personal attacks.
Not to pry, but do you have any examples of this?
The comments on the linked article feature a number of examples of this, despite already having had the worse stuff moderated-out. For instance:
> You are an abhorrent and miserable human being, Ron Gilbert. You should be ashamed of yourself. One can only hope that you retire from the industry and never return.
Which, you know, not cool.
Re: “The joy of sharing has been driven from me“
#18I feel bad for him, but really the problem is he’s made a directorial mistake and it looks like the only point it’s gonna click is when the sales numbers hit. Will he realize his mistaken then or will he continue to blame the customer?
No, that’s not the problem. Not the problem that’s relevant to this discussion anyway. The problem is that people are either relentlessly telling him that they didn’t like the art or hatefully attacking him for choosing that art style. Hateful is what made him decide to close comments and not share stuff anymore. But relentless, even if polite, criticism also takes a toll.
And art style quality is subjective. I, for one, don’t think he made a mistake. If it does hurt sales, it is an objective evidence that it was a mistake commercially speaking. Which is just one dimension. He might still be happy with his decision.
Regardless of sales effect though, I think people feel entitled to be heard by him. They are not happy only with voting with their wallets, or just telling friends that they didn’t like the art style, that are making a point of going to him pointing fingers that he messed up. That’s not fine in my view even if they do not use hateful words, which a minority does. But the majority is still pointing fingers at him.
For me Ron is doing the right thing in managing all this. Stop sharing stuff, close comments, go back working on it silence. If, because of that, the game is a commercial failure, so be it. It is his risk to take. People are acting outraged no because Ron is screaming rude things back to them, because he is not. People are outraged that he just won’t change the art style at this point. That he is not pulling a Sonic on this. And I think the behavior of those people demanding change is just silly. And dangerous when potentialzed by the scale of the internet.
So good for Ron going back to silence. It will be better for him and the team. And, I think, better for the game as well.
Re: “The joy of sharing has been driven from me“
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Disagreeing with the art direction is one thing but people are going beyond constructive criticism by being toxic and throwing personal attacks.
Not to pry, but do you have any examples of this?
In the article being discussed, Ron writes:
> I'm shutting down comments. People are just being mean and I'm having to delete personal attack comments.
These comments is what you are requesting.
Browse them using wayback machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://grumpygamer.com/rtmi_t...
Re: “The joy of sharing has been driven from me“
#20I don’t get the hate- I like the style of the new graphics, and I think they are a sensitive updating of what’s good about monkey island’s original graphical vibe. I guess I am the target nostalgia demographic though; 70s latchkey kid. I fully intend to play this with my kids and enjoy the shit out of it.
To me it looks very similar to Alegria corporate art which kind of turns me off, but he should do what he wants and I have no reason to think I should give him my feedback.