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The problem of game developers receiving abusive messages

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Re: The problem of game developers receiving abusive messages

#161

Post by abiox »

i suppose a couple questions might cause some people to infer otherwise, so to be clear: it's not implying the behavior is "fine" or shouldn't be critically analysed.

ok. so, things like online death threats and other such things get talked about a lot, and i have two main questions:

a) what kind of conversion rate is there - that is, threats being acted upon (how many threats vs how many events)?

b) has there been any analysis that shows these threats are credible and should be considered as demonstrating legitimate danger?

(again, this isn't to meant to excuse such behavior.)

my question stems from the fact that there is a rather long standing "internet gaming culture" which provides a context for hyperbolic aggressive commentary and interpersonal behavior, that some people may not be familiar with. for example, for as long as i can remember (i started with quake 3 over modem) to lose a match was to 'get raped'. to go on a win streak was to be 'fucking raping everyone'.

my thinking is that the vast, overwhelming majority of 'death threats' are hyperbolic and aggressive, but also utterly throwaway comments void of danger. as a consequence, talking about real world fear and even actions (like moving house) doesn't really garner a sympathetic reaction from many in the internet gaming culture, because it (from their perspective) demonstrates either significant naivete and ignorance, or some kind of intellectual dishonesty (given the idea that the threats do not represent an actual danger).

Re: The problem of game developers receiving abusive messages

#162

Post by Sir_Cmpwn »

camus2 wrote: post #160
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other online communities. I haven't really met any violent holligans in football so I can't compare to that.

Because you think hooligans aren't being mean and hateful online as well? let's not even talk about political circles which have nothing to do with gaming. You are talking from you experience standpoint but you're wrong, there is way worse than gaming communities.

A sample can be simultaneously greater than the mean and less than the maximum.

Re: The problem of game developers receiving abusive messages

#163

Post by InclinedPlane »

percival_krusen wrote: post #93
InclinedPlane wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans aren't feral, their patterns of behavior are dictated by culture, education, etc, regardless of "impulses". People may have impulses to hurt or steal from others, but those impulses can be controlled and the impacts of those impulses can be diminished on society. Socio-cultural norms and education teach people that there are other ways to get what you want than theft, for example, and provide strong discourage…

How do you hold people accountable without compromising anonymity, though? And if you compromise anonymity, how do you avoid a chilling effect on those who depend on it for e.g., political activism? Seems like a dilemma to me.

Anonymity isn't an issue for some of these things.

For example, when you're interacting in a customer service context on, say, steam, you are not anonymous. Valve can change its TOU to make it so that you forfeit all claims to redress if you use abuse during a customer service interaction, and can further scale that up to include additional consequences (banning you from participation in certain ways or from certain benefits).

Additionally, "in band" consequences don't have to compromise anonymity. On twitter or facebook, for example, you can have abuse reports that are verified result in different levels of account restriction. You can make it so that the account's posts are no longer visible in other people's timelines as replies, for example (e.g. they are only visible to people who specifically follow that user or when specific posts are linked to directly). You can restrict accounts in other ways and even block access to accounts for short periods of time. Or you can ban people forever. All of these techniques have been used for years and years to prevent abusive behavior, the only reason they haven't been used effectively against this particular sort of abuse is because of apathy on the part of most platform owners, but that can change easily.

Re: The problem of game developers receiving abusive messages

#164

Post by meheleventyone »

EugeneOZ wrote: post #153
meheleventyone wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Be sure, your attitude is a reason why gamers think that developers are too arrogant to communicate.

It’s a very normal expectation that unsolicited communication may not be responded too. That non-response is met with indignation and threats only tells me that not responding was the wisest course of action as anything short of complete agreement is likely to result in the same. What I’d like platforms to do is stop normalising this abusive behaviour so that creators can engage with fans who aren’t going to abuse them at the drop of a hat.

Re: The problem of game developers receiving abusive messages

#165

Post by EugeneOZ »

abiox wrote: post #158
EugeneOZ wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't cry, dear, I didn't post any bad comments about your game, it wasn't me :) "Go create your own {product}" is so childish response.

this usage of 'dear' seems passive-aggressive. why is it okay to demand a game designer to not design as they wish? in comparison, is it okay to demand that musicians not compose the music as they wish?

I answered to passive-aggressive. Is it common in game industry to think user is always wrong?

Re: The problem of game developers receiving abusive messages

#166

Post by jdlshore »

falcolas wrote: post #141
ManuelKiessling wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 lif…

Going by memory here, since most of the search results about the topic are very... polarized. The genesis of the problem, as with so many problems, is that two people were in a short term sexual relationship. The issue with that is the woman made video games, and the man reviewed video games. His review of her video game "Depression Quest" was glowing - a sentiment most people who played the game didn't feel was warr…

GamerGate was orchestrated by misogynistic racists on 4chan's /pol/ board. They used "ethics in journalism" as a deliberate excuse to rile people up, and tricked a large crowd of gamers into buying that excuse and thus providing them with cover and additional power. Ultimately it was a disgusting and successful attack against women and people of color.

By repeating the excuse (that it was about a game review, when in fact it was an orchestrated attack, and the supposed review does not exist), you're perpetuating a mistake (providing cover to a small group of misogynistic racists) that caused a lot of harm. I doubt you did this intentionally, so I suggest you do some more research.

There is a fantastic YouTube series that goes into detail, including investigating the public record of the people behind GamerGate, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6y8XgGhXkTQ

If you can't watch the whole thing (although it's worth it), this part goes into the origins of GamerGate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6TrKkkVEhs .

Re: The problem of game developers receiving abusive messages

#167

Post by sctb »

Marazan wrote: post #118
Marazan wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh fuck off you tedious twat. What an asine idiotic argument. Were you born a moron or did you work hard at it?

HINT: This post was ironic

I have no idea what it was but it wasn't civil and substantive, so please don't post like that.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: The problem of game developers receiving abusive messages

#168

Post by vanderZwan »

jmcqk6 wrote: post #157
vanderZwan wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the offer of a strategy to minimise the upset caused. Ah yes, the "upset caused". Also known as "a complete lack of empathy for or insight into the situation by the person offering the advice, usually due to not really thinking about the problem at all". At least, that's the only way I can imagine someone thinking to themselves "oh, this kid is being beaten up, his stuff is being destroyed or taken from him. The be…

Not the person you're replying to. >At least, that's the only way I can imagine someone thinking to themselves "oh, this kid is being beaten up, his stuff is being destroyed or taken from him. The best strategy is clearly to be less upset about all that" This is a straw man. No one has claimed anything like that at any point in this thread. You are exaggerating their point to make your own, and it lessens the impact…

You're on a website that functions by social interaction validated through votes of other people.

Re: The problem of game developers receiving abusive messages

#169

Post by jdiaz5513 »

guelo wrote: post #68

What we need is to take a page from Uber and have user-side ratings along with the producer-side ratings. A forum like steam could let producers or peers downvote gamers and then producers could choose to not sell games to people whose ratings are too low.

Something tells me there may be an inherent danger to isolating these people further.

You may be on to something, but perhaps restricting sales is not the best use of user-ratings.

I've often wondered if weighing a producer-side rating against the user-side rating could work (e.g. a user with a low rating can give a 1 star review yet have little effect on the game rating).

Re: The problem of game developers receiving abusive messages

#170

Post by esyir »

jdlshore wrote: post #166
falcolas wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going by memory here, since most of the search results about the topic are very... polarized. The genesis of the problem, as with so many problems, is that two people were in a short term sexual relationship. The issue with that is the woman made video games, and the man reviewed video games. His review of her video game "Depression Quest" was glowing - a sentiment most people who played the game didn't feel was warr…

GamerGate was orchestrated by misogynistic racists on 4chan's /pol/ board. They used "ethics in journalism" as a deliberate excuse to rile people up, and tricked a large crowd of gamers into buying that excuse and thus providing them with cover and additional power. Ultimately it was a disgusting and successful attack against women and people of color. By repeating the excuse (that it was about a game review, when in…

The argument made was about positive publicity, though that was also turned into "positive reviews" via the wonders of the internet telephone game.

GamerGate was a far more complex scenario than you're simplifying it to.

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