Game devs starting to call out some of the *crazy* vitriol

[NOK222]

A lot of people rank on ego as a personality problem. What doesn't get mentioned as often is that ego is a terrific motivator.

Except for Fish, apparently. 

[Malcador]

 

If you're a game developer, and you're name doesn't really stretch beyond gaming culture, you're not as big as you think. I just can't fathom the ego of people.

Just out of curiosity, how many game dev's names stretch beyond gaming?

 

John Romero. He made you his bitch

[licketysplit]

 

So Fish as a martyr then eh ?

Eh?

 

I'm not sure I'd say that, seems like there may be more to the problem than just one root cause.

 

 

Nah, I think Phil is a giant ****. Don't tell people to **** off, suck your ****, your games suck, etc if you can't take a bit of flak yourself. And apparently he can't. I mean he can't even take the slightest bit of criticism before he starts whinging about how bad his life is.

[anubite]

I guess, I've been using the internet too long. Maybe I don't see any of this as a bad thing.

 

If I'm a game developer and I'm getting death threats, it means the game I've made has made some people to become passionate about it. Death threats are serious... but they aren't necessarily something you need to get all solemn about. Two cases have sprung up with teenagers getting 10 year sentences for death threats over internet games (League of Legends and Runescape). I feel like... taking these threats so solemnly is wrong.

 

The internet is a wild entity. But taming it isn't the answer. It has a lot to offer us. I've learned a lot by using it. Asking people to censor themselves, or actually censoring them through more heavy-handed means... it stifles creativity. And more than that - there's something else far worse that it does, but hell if I can explain the feeling I've got.

 

People need to learn to channel their passions into more productive things than death threats and insults. I think we can try to ask people to do that. But I'm hesitant to agree with anything that uses the word like "police". I feel like, the internet is this strange place where we can really come to understand ourselves and the human experience. It's a place where there can be no consequence for our actions. That's a scary thing, but it's also very illuminating. It would be horrible if others do not get to experience this, because others are too frail to endure the slings and arrows of others.

 

Phil Fish is the obvious person to jump to at this time. He's said some horrible things - bullying a Japanese fan. He made some pretty outrageous, pretty degrading and insulting things about an entire culture of game developers, for no real reason. It's fair to say he's a giant hypocrite for throwing a tantrum when he's on the receiving end of such behavior.

Edited July 30, 2013 by anubite

[pmp10]

If I'm a game developer and I'm getting death threats, it means the game I've made has made some people to become passionate about it.

If your players are 'passionate' this way about a game so to threated developer with death then you can only imagine the way they commonly treat each-other.

You can leave it to fester but then normal players will be pushed out and the community will start to give you a bad name.

 

And the whole Fish nonsense just proves how immature gaming community really is.

Apparently devs and journalists included.

[BruceVC]

 

If I'm a game developer and I'm getting death threats, it means the game I've made has made some people to become passionate about it.

If your players are 'passionate' this way about a game so to threated developer with death then you can only imagine the way they commonly treat each-other.

You can leave it to fester but then normal players will be pushed out and the community will start to give you a bad name.

 

And the whole Fish nonsense just proves how immature gaming community really is.

Apparently devs and journalists included.

 

 

But at least in a forum community you can ban people and ensure a level of respectability.

 

There isn't that type of monitoring around most types of Social Media

[Orogun01]

 

 

If I'm a game developer and I'm getting death threats, it means the game I've made has made some people to become passionate about it.

If your players are 'passionate' this way about a game so to threated developer with death then you can only imagine the way they commonly treat each-other.

You can leave it to fester but then normal players will be pushed out and the community will start to give you a bad name.

 

And the whole Fish nonsense just proves how immature gaming community really is.

Apparently devs and journalists included.

 

 

But at least in a forum community you can ban people and ensure a level of respectability.

 

There isn't that type of monitoring around most types of Social Media

 

Perhaps instead of monitoring they could just assign demerits, with some visual hook to show to everyone that this person is an undesirable and with the option to filter posters by demerits.

[anubite]

 

If I'm a game developer and I'm getting death threats, it means the game I've made has made some people to become passionate about it.

If your players are 'passionate' this way about a game so to threated developer with death then you can only imagine the way they commonly treat each-other.

You can leave it to fester but then normal players will be pushed out and the community will start to give you a bad name.

 

And the whole Fish nonsense just proves how immature gaming community really is.

Apparently devs and journalists included.

 

There are some "immature" developers (let's stay away from terms like "immature"? It's a loaded word), but they aren't in abundance.

 

If a game you like is being ruined by a balance patch, you're probably frustrated and upset. If death threats come from a particuarly impassioned player... again, notice my word choice. You shouldn't take death threats lightly and you should try to encourage constructive behavior in your community, but you shouldn't overreact. 

 

Game forums/communities aren't really for the "casual" player, unless you're offering tech support in them. Casual players aren't invested in your game/product, passionate fans are.

 

Trying to make your forum/community a neat and pristine PR package isn't going to work. Look at how BioWare struggles to control its communities - it's made it so that constructive criticism isn't even attempted. Only extremely impassioned and extremely toll-y people bother to post there anymore. If the forum were more open, I think more civil discussion could have been had. It's too late now though.

 

The point of having a community is for feedback and maintaining a fan base, which hopefully increases revenue. Creating a police state on the net isn't going to do either.

Edited July 30, 2013 by anubite

[pmp10]

Game forums/communities aren't really for the "casual" player, unless you're offering tech support in them. Casual players aren't invested in your game/product, passionate fans are.

And here is where I disagree.

Not only were casual fans always important but with wide-spreading of freemium models they are actually affecting the bottom line more than ever.

Losing them due to behavior of minority of players is slowly becoming unacceptable to the publisher/developer.

The best example is the tribunal system in LoL which is most likely the first serious attempt to police a f2p community.

[Amentep]

 

 

If death threats come from a particuarly impassioned player... again, notice my word choice. You shouldn't take death threats lightly and you should try to encourage constructive behavior in your community, but you shouldn't overreact.

So what kind of action against an "impassioned" player making death threats isn't overreacting? Deleting the threats? Banning the poster? Calling the police because you've been threatened?

 

I understand feeling passionately about a game, but why would we want to excuse the actions of a person who feels that the correct response to announced changes in a game they like is threatening to kill the people who make the changes?

[anubite]

 

Game forums/communities aren't really for the "casual" player, unless you're offering tech support in them. Casual players aren't invested in your game/product, passionate fans are.

And here is where I disagree.

Not only were casual fans always important but with wide-spreading of freemium models they are actually affecting the bottom line more than ever.

Losing them due to behavior of minority of players is slowly becoming unacceptable to the publisher/developer.

The best example is the tribunal system in LoL which is most likely the first serious attempt to police a f2p community.

 

I didn't say they were unimportant. I just think it's pointless to try and create an online community for them. They're casual players, they don't have time to invest in discussion on a forum, by definition of being casual.

 

Riot's "attempt to police a f2p community" is just a means of doing business. You ban players, forcing them buy things again.

 

As for what you should do when someone starts making death threats, it depends on the context. If the poster has no history of posting on the forum, then you ban them. They're probably a bot or a troll or whatever. If the person has a history of posting, then it depends upon the severity of the threat. You don't call the police on someone making death threats unless they post personal information about you, or start making serious contact with you outside the public forum.

 

It's important when managing a community to highlight posts like a death threat - to make a thread about it and to say why this person is wrong for threatening someone's life. The thread should provide information on whatever povoked the outburst. Let's say it's a balance patch - let's say there's a particular issue about balance people feel strongly about. Create an outlet for that discussion and try to show players their opinions are considered and matter.

Edited July 30, 2013 by anubite

[Orogun01]

 

If death threats come from a particuarly impassioned player... again, notice my word choice. You shouldn't take death threats lightly and you should try to encourage constructive behavior in your community, but you shouldn't overreact.

So what kind of action against an "impassioned" player making death threats isn't overreacting? Deleting the threats? Banning the poster? Calling the police because you've been threatened?

 

I understand feeling passionately about a game, but why would we want to excuse the actions of a person who feels that the correct response to announced changes in a game they like is threatening to kill the people who make the changes?

 

I don't think it merits imprisonment.

[alanschu]

I agree that it's a bit of a self-serving prophecy for a lot of forums.

 

 

On some level the game forums are always for a fan that is going that extra step (and I'll agree that a lot of people simply don't have the interest in becoming a fan of that magnitude), when you get insular communities that ostracize differing opinions, you shut people out.

 

 

The BSN is pretty jaded, in general, towards DA2 (which is fair).  But with the DA3 announcement, there was actually an influx of people that actually enjoyed DA2, from some saying "They prefer it" to "It wasn't as good as DAO but I still enjoyed it."  A *lot* of bickering arguments got started up in response to that, and it got pretty unpleasant, mostly because the entrenched statusquo had an opinion.

 

It's also an interesting social experiment though, because you can see that the sides get heated and they start to argue "to win" because they want to convince people to support their position, because they have this idea that every contrary perspective that goes unchecked is effectively a vote for "making a game that they won't like as much."  I have seen people behave very differently in a private message with me, compared to the things that they say when they have an audience.

[Amentep]

 

 

If death threats come from a particuarly impassioned player... again, notice my word choice. You shouldn't take death threats lightly and you should try to encourage constructive behavior in your community, but you shouldn't overreact.

So what kind of action against an "impassioned" player making death threats isn't overreacting? Deleting the threats? Banning the poster? Calling the police because you've been threatened?

 

I understand feeling passionately about a game, but why would we want to excuse the actions of a person who feels that the correct response to announced changes in a game they like is threatening to kill the people who make the changes?

 

I don't think it merits imprisonment.

 

I don't think releasing a patch that rebalances a gun merits someone issuing death threats.

 

What value could that person possibly offer to any community - real or virtual - if their perspective of "what is important in the big scheme of things" is so skewed that a patch that makes a gun action a little bit slower - even in anger - seemed reasonable?

 

(I should add that generally speaking I don't necessarily think every death threat issued online needs police involvement, but really I can't find a lot of sympathy for those who find that their death threat issued on twitter landed them in real life trouble).

Edited July 30, 2013 by Amentep

[pmp10]

 

 

Game forums/communities aren't really for the "casual" player, unless you're offering tech support in them. Casual players aren't invested in your game/product, passionate fans are.

And here is where I disagree.

Not only were casual fans always important but with wide-spreading of freemium models they are actually affecting the bottom line more than ever.

Losing them due to behavior of minority of players is slowly becoming unacceptable to the publisher/developer.

The best example is the tribunal system in LoL which is most likely the first serious attempt to police a f2p community.

 

I didn't say they were unimportant. I just think it's pointless to try and create an online community for them. They're casual players, they don't have time to invest in discussion on a forum, by definition of being casual.

 

But they do have money to spend.

If they want to catch-up to more hardcore players by spending extra $ it matters to developers.

 

Riot's "attempt to police a f2p community" is just a means of doing business. You ban players, forcing them buy things again.

If that was the case they would auto-ban people that spent the most and leave those without purchases be.

[anubite]

No, they can't "auto-ban" people because that would be pretty shady. Nobody would play their game. They want plausible deniability for permanently banning accounts.

 

 

 

 

 

If death threats come from a particuarly impassioned player... again, notice my word choice. You shouldn't take death threats lightly and you should try to encourage constructive behavior in your community, but you shouldn't overreact.

So what kind of action against an "impassioned" player making death threats isn't overreacting? Deleting the threats? Banning the poster? Calling the police because you've been threatened?

I understand feeling passionately about a game, but why would we want to excuse the actions of a person who feels that the correct response to announced changes in a game they like is threatening to kill the people who make the changes?

 

I don't think it merits imprisonment.

 

I don't think releasing a patch that rebalances a gun merits someone issuing death threats.

What value could that person possibly offer to any community - real or virtual - if their perspective of "what is important in the big scheme of things" is so skewed that a patch that makes a gun action a little bit slower - even in anger - seemed reasonable?

(I should add that generally speaking I don't necessarily think every death threat issued online needs police involvement, but really I can't find a lot of sympathy for those who find that their death threat issued on twitter landed them in real life trouble).

 

Valve has made comments on player behavior. In their experience "extremely passionate" (ie irate) users that go out of their way to talk to them offer some of the most useful information they can acquire, once they can calm them down and make them positive contributors to the community. I forget which podcast it was, but I think it was when Gabe talked to the people from the Nerdist.

 

=

 

The thing is, barring incidents where people bring their "real identity" into play, most people still use the internet as a means to communicate anonymously; through handles. It is easy for players to attack ideas and words, it is easy for people to write harsher things about what is being said. They have less restraint because they can't see your person.

 

Unless developers are being addressed by their full name, they should probably consider death threats to be a part of the lingo. "Your ideas suck." It's this frankness that people are uncomfortable with. Some people are perhaps blown away, because they see it as an attack on their person. But the internet only lets egos come into play when someone wags theirs about. People aren't concerned with egos, only the content of speech or action. When someone is saying that the developers should die in a fire for releasing the latest patch, they aren't doing it in a spiteful, loathsome way, beliving the developers really need to suffer the nine hells for whatever trivial thing they have done - they are being berated for the choices they have made in developing the game.

 

While it's better that players express themselves in a cordial manner, I don't think the internet is a place for manner and I like that we can be so frank to each other without feeling the need to worry about tromping all over egos. This asks that some people abandon such things when they enter a public forum, but isn't it better we judge the content of speech and not the speaker? By saying we should "police" others to say "positive things" or what not, we are basically asking for self-censorship.

 

It's hard to distinguish genuine death threats from non-genuine ones, so it's hard to know which death threats are ones we should report to the authorities or not, but if personal information isn't being thrown about, I would say that it should be on the developer's part to have a thick skin and to bear it. Or, alternatively, to close down the forum and give up communication with his or her fanbase - it's only going to end badly if you overreact, even if you're justified in doing so.

Edited July 30, 2013 by anubite

[Amentep]

Valve has made comments on player behavior. In their experience "extremely passionate" (ie irate) users that go out of their way to talk to them offer some of the most useful information they can acquire, once they can calm them down and make them positive contributors to the community. I forget which podcast it was, but I think it was when Gabe talked to the people from the Nerdist.

Which is fair enough.

 

So in this case the question is, how do we (the entire community) stop people from reacting in ways that are extremely out of proportionate to the "problem" and getting them to provide the useful feedback without forcing the developer to swim through waves of noise in order to find that irate community member's signal?

[anubite]

I don't think there's anything we can do about it. We can post and say to that user, "Stop it." But as users of a forum, we have little notoriety or power. Developers can try to empower regular users, but that just comes with abuse.

Riot's "tribunal" system is broken, honestly, because players get regularly banned for playing ranked games with sub-optimal champions or builds. You shouldn't be punished for playing a game the way you like to play it (I frequently lost LoL ranked matches when I played it, because I mained Evelynn, and by the way, I was good at her, but people would purposefully sabotage games and report me for playing the 'worst champion in the game'. I got several notices from Riot to stop whatever it was I was doing, even though I was legitimately playing the game, carrying games where my team didn't blow up whenever I picked her). I don't think empowering the average user will do anything more than create chaos.

 

Developers hold the cards here. They need to realize that frankness is appreciated on the internet and not double-speak.

 

If you are developing a game and you are going to release a nerf patch, you pretty much need to put out a youtube video, or at least, sticky a very large, very comprehensive post. You need to post facts, figures, data, and analysis - you need to explain the community why you've done what you've done. You also need to provide a means for the community to respond, ask them to challenge your work, to find a better solution. Discuss the better solutions in a follow-up youtube video, or post.

 

This sort of interaction is obviously exhausting, but the more the developers interact with their customer base, the better a game they will produce. You can't insulate yourself and you can't put a bunch of spin to how you develop. If you're honest, people will appreciate that, even if it's not something they want to hear.

Of course, even going to these lengths, you will still have a user or three who are belligerent. I think it's up to the developer to single out these posts and higlight them to the community as incorrect ways of communicating and to rationally pick them apart and explain why they are wrong for making threats. A lot of people who use the internet are children, by the way, who are still learning the rules of decorum. Patience and tolerence are expensive to maintain if you're constantly berated, but I think it's the only way.

Edited July 30, 2013 by anubite

[Hurlshort]

Hah, nobody casual plays LoL.

[anubite]

Casual is a pretty nebulous term. When I think of casual, I tend to think of flash games or iOS games. If you own a PC and can get an application properly installed and running, you're probably in some other demographic.

[Orogun01]

 

Valve has made comments on player behavior. In their experience "extremely passionate" (ie irate) users that go out of their way to talk to them offer some of the most useful information they can acquire, once they can calm them down and make them positive contributors to the community. I forget which podcast it was, but I think it was when Gabe talked to the people from the Nerdist.

Which is fair enough.

 

So in this case the question is, how do we (the entire community) stop people from reacting in ways that are extremely out of proportionate to the "problem" and getting them to provide the useful feedback without forcing the developer to swim through waves of noise in order to find that irate community member's signal?

 

We can get the like system to be reflective of a vote, if enough people like it the devs will read it. And then be confused because they are completely missing the context.

[anubite]

I absolutely hate the "like" or the "upvote/downvote" system. It silences genuine debate and allows threads to be locked that have genuine effort and content. It's a popularity game. Pointless threads about funny memes get +50000 upvotes and critical threads with unpopular, but factual argument get insta locked in 20 downvotes. It just doesn't work. It's the worst kind of public censoring.

[Zoraptor]

Downvote is stupid certainly, almost exclusively used by feebs who cannot cope with contrary opinions; or bullies. Upvote is fine, generally. People should not need a virtual pat on the back to prove that their views have merit, but it isn't destructive unless it's used for "upvote this if you hate [forum member/ game/ whatever]". Which can be done without an upvote system anyway.

 

No, they can't "auto-ban" people because that would be pretty shady. Nobody would play their game. They want plausible deniability for permanently banning accounts.

An awful lot of people bought WarZ, and that was pretty much exactly what they were (allegedly) doing. In that case there was a certain amount of deliberately caused confusion with an actually legitimate product to counter any negativity, but it was bad enough to be one of the reasons it got pulled from steam temporarily.

[alanschu]

I find I'm only a "fan" of downvoting when I see that posts I "feel are wrong" are the ones downvoted.  Which pretty much confirms your perspective of it having pretty glaring failings.

[Orogun01]

Ultimately I believe that the only quality control devs need to do on their games is play them. Then they will know whether the result is as they envisioned, they will know what user input problems rise and what design choices didn't work. I'm pretty sure there are a lot of game directors who don't play their own games, which is like being a cook who doesn't taste his own food.