Game developers are pushing back against player toxicity

Game studios like Sony Santa Monica and Digital Cybercherries aren't taking player abuse lying down anymore.

[Kaii]

Why as a developer would you Interact with the community anyway? Throw out the trailer with the release date and don't engage, is it that hard? From multiplayer to grouping in mmo's you'll get abuse & the moment you indulge the comments or make the trolls aware that it's having some "impact" you've essentially lost.

"Is harassment getting worse?" If you choose to look for it, yes.

Extra monetization In your game upsetting you? It's not Becky the developer's fault, Devs are obligated to milk that game dry for shareholders & It's your choice to purchase said game, even if you were misled the lesson learned is not to purchase anything In the future from said studio.

*Twitter/FB/IG are not good for your health.

[EvertonFC]

Exactly, it's the same with the ego leaker articles, just don't click them as there full of BS 99% of the time plus why ruin the surprise of a new ip game announcement, trailer, event or release date etc.
Take GoW for instance, it missed it's 2021 release year but it was never delayed or in trouble going into 2022 as it never had a date to be delayed yet we had all the hate from the community, misinformation, YT influencers talking BS etc.

[TheCaptainKuchiki]

I bet you're the type of people who say that if women don't want to get harassed by men outside then they should just stay home. Congrats here's a cookie

[Old McGroin]

@TheCaptainKuchiki

I bet you're the type of person who likes to put words in people's mouths and act like they really said those things when they really didn't so you can climb atop your high horse and gain that oh so important moral high ground.
Congrats, but I'm keeping the cookie.

[NotoriousWhiz]

Dang, he took @Kaii's cookie. It's cool. He didn't want those calories anyway.

[TheCaptainKuchiki]

Blablabla nobody gaf about y'all replies.

[FPS_D3TH]

Just as long as we’re on the same page that nobody gaf about your opinion either

[RaiderNation]

That's a false equivalency. If he had said "If you don't like the responses, don't be on Twitter at all and never post anything" then you'd have an argument. He's not saying never be on Twitter. He's just saying do not dignify these ridiculous posts by a bunch of overgrown children with a response. I agree.

[Crows90]

Except nobody says that lol...other than you..you're legit the only person who I've heard make that claim.

[homeruz2]

Developers are humans and they deserve to be respected as such. If an immature person send them a d*** pic, that imitate person deserves to be shamed 24/7

[rippermcrip]

That's what they should do. This lady should have posted the dudes d*** Pic back on Twitter for everyone to see.

[H9]

It's not a pretty situation, but what you are saying is a double edged sword, from one angle yes the attention gives people power and influence changes in the industry, if one of the developers ran from the abuse then it makes the abusers think that they can make changes, but it's their fault, in the first place developers shouldn't have to handle this situation, but at least you should limit the damages if you can, the problem is not everyone are capable of not giving the abusers attention and power, some people can handle it and render them powerless, but others can't, which may lead to horrible mental consequences, this is a LOSE LOSE situation!

A side note, nothing will be solved if we cheery pick the entitlement we want to fight against, hundreds of articles will be made in these situations, yet these outlets would call developers disrespectful if they made a game hard and would keep quiet if death threats were sent against a eastern developer with a different culture, if we show people that there's a way to run away from consequences then they will be encouraged to abuse!

[PapaBop]

If you've poured your heart and soul to create something you're passionate about, why wouldn't you want to engage with the very people who will appreciate your work? Some fans will always take it too far and that's really sad but developer interaction is important, especially for games with a long lifespan and continued development.

I can't really talk for most gaming communities but I've been an avid FF14 player for a good few years now and I love the way Yoshi P and his developers communicate with the community. Something goes wrong, he straight up apologies and explains what happens, none of that corporate hogwash that crap companies like EA would churn out.

[Mobis-New-Nest]

As a videogame developer you are obligated to subjugate your fanbase and make sure they never step out of line and when they do you have to put them in their place or revoke their Fan Card.

[XiNatsuDragnel]

This is going avengers gaming edition?

[babadivad]

Yes.

[chicken_in_the_corn]

Good on them. The gaming community is made up of some of the worst people there is.

[_Decadent_Descent]

Makes me hate calling myself a gamer for that very reason.

[Army_of_Darkness]

I've been gaming since the NES days and honestly, I've Nevered encountered gamers anywhere near that bad. It's usually just "my console of choice is better than your console!"... Nothing to do with developers and all, so I find it very difficult to believe that it has gotten this bad....

[NotoriousWhiz]

Every community has some of the worst people. I know someone whose car got flipped because his license plate had a rival sports team on it.

[JackBNimble]

You mean playstation community

[garryxcs]

No not just the Playstation community and your comment literally proves it.

[JackBNimble]

Well actually in this case it is the playstation community

[garryxcs]

Did you bother to read the article or just see the God of War thumb nail and decide to single out one fan base? The article mentions Hypercharge, Battlefield and Return to Monkey Island which are not just Playstation games as well as this quote, "employees at Activision Blizzard, who are demanding that management better protect customer support and community management developers who receive increased abuse whenever bad news hits the company." So again its not just the Playstation community so you can stop trolling.

[Profchaos]

The internet brings out the worst in people. If you got most of the toxic community members face to face I'm positive they would be to scared to run their mouths in such a way.

[senorfartcushion]

It’s 50% insufferable greedy gamers and 50% overbearing advertising. The game creators and publishers create the game as well as the fanbase. Them becoming zombie greed vampires is a symptom of how much games get shoved down our throats on a daily basis.

[babadivad]

.

[babadivad]

No it isn't. Literally every community is like this. It's called being human. I don't understand why you shine a light on an extremely small portion of a community and use this as a brush to paint the entire community with.

It's like saying 2% of black people have a criminal record there for all of them are criminals.

Why don't you just use the tools of the platform you are on and block and report toxic fans. Not use the blanket term or make the implication that ALL fans are toxic.

That laterally helps nothing and only drives further divisions and animosity within the fanbase and with the developers.

We know where that road leads to, apathy.

[babadivad]

When people don't care, the industry dies.

The exact same thing happened with the comic book community. Creators turned on fans, fanbase became divided and became tired of defending themselves from blanket statements. Your paying customers became apathetic, the comic book industry died.

Developers/Creatives literally gain nothing by attacking their paying customers. You would think would be common sense but apparently that's in short supply these days. There's so many examples of this ending badly.

They should realpy think twice before continuing down this path.

[senorfartcushion]

It always comes from the same country.

[Levii_92]

Oh for godsake.. just shut up and make good games and release them when you said you would without any delays and then the other side will shut up and pay for it and everyone is happy. Oh and also don't pay attention to dumb s**t online .. is that so hard ? What are these people children ?

[FunAndGun]

Ignoring a problem is never the answer.... are you a child?

[CrimsonWing69]

I think ignoring them IS the solution.

[goldwyncq]

Crying about things you have no control over is the definition of being a child. By not ignoring the trolls, you’re just giving them more power because they thrive on attention. You think a strongly worded message against trolls and toxic asshats will make them stop what they’re doing?

[sourOG]

When you get death threats and harassment they recommend you don’t publicly cry about them because it just gets worse. That’s how trolls work. “Don’t feed the trolls” is actually the grown up answer lol.

[JackBNimble]

What else are you going to do ... cry like a b.... when playstation fanboys don't get what they want when they want it?

[Imalwaysright]

Ignoring a problem that you'll never solve and doesn't hurt anyone in a significant way is the answear.

[Duke19]

To everyone saying “just ignore them”, there is no reason entitled gamers should be sending death threats to developers because their fucking game was delayed.

These entitled pieces of shit are at fault here, and shouldn’t be given a pass. You don’t like a game, don’t buy it and leave it at that

[sourOG]

What are you going to do about it though? What are they going to do about it? How are you going to stop it exactly? Ignoring it is the only rational option. Ignoring ignorant people isn’t “getting a pass”. Nothing hurts a troll more than indifference. They move on to feathers that can be rattled.

[Duke19]

Statements like this just give them a pass which is wrong. "How are you gonna stop them?" lol - maybe if we stop normalizing it and simply accepting horrid behavior by calling it out over time it can be improved.

The takes on here are wild to me. The post below literally like "Words shouldn't hurt you when the come from someone who doesn't even have a face". Like why are people trying to defend people being shitty on the internet?

Just because these kids can hide behind their keyboards doesn't mean that that behavior HAS to be tolerated. They should be called out.

[sourOG]

You still didn’t answer how to stop it. “Maybe if we call it out it will eventually stop”. No, it won’t. It never has. I don’t condone death threats and harassment lol. Crying about it won’t solve anything. Giving them attention is what they want.

[sourOG]

All public figures have to tolerate harassment. It comes with the job. You don’t hear about 99% of it because they know how the internet works. If you think the threat is credible you contact authorities. If it’s just some annoying prick you mute them and report them. The absolute worst thing you can do is cry on Twitter (a cesspool) about your trolls. It’s like flies to shit. I bet the dick pics in Santa Monica’s inbox grew 10 fold after they publicly mentioned it lol. That was just dumb. You are not going to reach these idiots with a scathing article of moral superiority. This kind of shit doesn’t do devs any favors. It doesn’t do anything but let the author sniff their own farts and preach to the choir.

We all agree that what they do is wrong but there isn’t a solution aside from ignoring them and moving on with your life. It’s unfortunate but it is what it is. It’s not “normalizing shitty behavior” when shitty behavior has always been the standard. Humans suck, adapt and overcome. That’s just my opinion and final thought before I stop caring again lol.

[LucasRuinedChildhood]

I disagree. The best way to fight a bully isn't to ignore them and let them get away with it - that makes them feel powerful and incentivizes them to keep doing it.

The solution is for everyone in the room to laugh at them and make them feel small. It's still a sort of indifference but it conveys that they're weird and should be embarassed, which will actually make them less likely to do it. Basically, we all need to roast the trolls to a fine crisp, haha, along with the those online who encourage this stuff without getting their hands as dirty.

[sourOG]

@lucas

I disagree. It’s not the same.

The best way to deal with a bully is to beat the living shit out of them. Physical violence must be met with physical violence. This isn’t physical violence or a bully. It’s annoying internet trolls.

Are you going to hunt down and beat the shit out of every internet troll? No lol. Could you roast them enough to get them to stop? No. “The entire room” is what exactly? The entire internet lol? Good luck getting more than 10 people to give a shit.

Engaging with a troll is only giving them what they want. It doesn’t matter if you are crying or laughing at them. They got a rise out of you which is the entire point of their sad existence.

There is a practical solution which is ignoring them. And there’s an emotional non-solution which is feeding them and giving them what they want while pretending you are fighting back. It sucks but that’s the options.

[Pocahontas]

Shut up and ignore it

[Killer2020UK]

The fact people are disagreeing with you says it all. Apathy is just as bad. How hard is it for people to just be decent?!

[WelkinCole]

Gone are the good old days where we can just be disapointed and then move on when games are delayed.

[Inverno]

Posting images of messages that are too long to write through a regular post sure puts those mean toxic gamers in their place! Report and block, every site these days has these features and if you're not taking advantage of them then idk what to tell you. Words shouldn't hurt you when they come from someone who doesn't even have a face.

[antikbaka]

I wish game devs fought loot boxes and gacha as hard as those horrible nasty gamers

[HollowIchigo25]

really tired of the "devs are victims/abused/blah" crap.

[CantThinkOfAUsername]

You work for asshats. Whatever great ideas you may have are tossed in the garbage by your managers. You're the creator, yet your opinion on what works and what doesn't holds zero value because only money speaks. The probability of a toxic and abusive workplace is high. You get crunched for weeks and sometimes months losing family and social time as well as risking your mental and physical health and are expected to swallow it just fine only later to be called lazy, useless and incompetent by people who sit on their arses doing nothing 24/7. Whenever you communicate with the 'supposedly passionate fans' of your product, you get 5 out of 10 bottom of the barrel of human society nurtured by the online toxic culture who send you death threats, dick pics, verbal harassment and share your personal information online because they think it's fun.

Hmmm, I wonder why those people are fed up.

[Duke19]

Seriously. Its like the morons that yell at the Starbucks employee because their coffee price went up

[HollowIchigo25]

I think you exaggerated quite a bit. SOME fans are toxic, but half? only very few send death threat and offensive pictures. I have seen developers get pissed because of simple everyday criticisms (like the creator of monkey island getting angry because long time fans dislike the art stye). I have seen MANY developers (especially on Steam) engage their fanbase in great ways. Maybe the abused developers should hire some good social media management personnel.

Every job has its problems, you mentioned all the (exaggerated)negatives of being a game developer but what about the GOOD things? like you know, being part of a team that makes a great game like God of War? also, game developers get paid nicely, average STARTING salary is 60k and senior devs above $100k.
But like I said, I am tired of these conversations, we are talking about the developers and the "toxic' fans instead of the games and this is wrong.

[awiseman]

Are they going to push back on media and journalist toxicity?

[jznrpg]

Stupid . I will stand up for myself whenever I feel the need to and anyone else has the right to . Who cares what other people think

[Dixiedevil]

I think there’s a separation to make here. Are there toxic a-holes? Yes, of course but devs and media outlets lump in legit criticism and concerns from fans into the same pile constantly and a lot of times it’s these people that get dumped on by the devs, other fans and media way harder than the other. I think the main take away isn’t “Gamers are toxic”, I think it’s more a matter of people can be a-holes, let’s try not to perpetuate it, disengage and move on.

[ChasterMies]

Some developers create player toxicity with pay-to-win, microtransactions, leaderboards, and no accessibility. Send your vitriol their way. Leave God of War alone.

[MADGameR]

There's a lotta money to be made to in fanboyism. If only companies would egg it on and support it, it would be MUCH more fun!

[MadLad]

Good.
The gamer base can be really pathetic at times.

[derek]

Push back all you want but if you engage social media expect that you will encounter toxic behavior as it is a tool to act out in frustration for some. I'm not even sure why developers put themselves out there like that and then complain when the inevitable happens.

[Elda]

As they should push back. Some folks are saying just ignore them but sometimes ignoring doesn't work. If one has to make an example out of a**holes then so be it. In some instances some have to get a dose/taste of their own medicine.

[chobit_A5HL3Y]

devs shouldn't take shit from entitled people but sometimes devs can't take constructive criticism and will act like dicks. if you're putting out a good product, an actual good product, and you haven't done anything shady, then people will be more forgiving even if your game's bad. it's usually only when you lie about stuff and have questionable practices that people speak up on it. of course there are a small minority that will talk trash, either because they're entitled or just because they're trolling. either way, the latter should just be ignored. if the majority of the feedback and community is on your side, then they'll generally weed out the more toxic people. that being said, i feel like you've gotta build up at least a bit of a thick skin to be in any industry where you're putting a product into the masses. if you're genuine in your intentions, it's difficult for people to fault you on it if you fall flat. if you're todd howard, you deserve every bit of criticism you get.

[franwex]

I think gamers are right sometimes with games that do not deliver to expectations (halo infinite, battlefield, etc).

Sometimes gamers are stupidly wrong (the last of us part 2, zombie mode in call of duty WW2 having female zombies)

Developers should fight back but it won’t always be pretty.

[brewin]

There is a lot of toxicity in the world and particularly in the gaming world. We are experiencing one of the best times to be a gamer and people are out here making it seem like it's the worst time in history! The kids will never know the struggle of half assed games with no patches or buying a game that you didn't like with no way to get a refund. Spoiled generation doesn't know how good they have it. I'm just happy to have good games coming out on all the platforms. It's escapism, but people are trying to bring real world drama into the gaming realm by caring about a specific devs political affiliation and such. Let the games do the talking, who cares about anything else. Good games are good regardless if someone you don't like made the damn thing.

[Crows90]

Hmm...yes and players also push back against developer toxicity and BS predatory monetization schemes as well.

You see? Both play an important role. The difference being that when devs push back players get generalized. Players know full well most of the dev team is not responsible for the acts of the few higher ups.

Not to mention these so called players may be teens. Little kids. Or some other type of immature brat.

[Stanjara]

I'm actually on the community side.

We should all get hyped by fake trailers, share everything on social media, make pre orders and battle passes and than...

be quiet for unfinished, delayed, bugged and woke AAA garbage that we can't even get a refund without community outcry.

But let's protect publishers by removing dislike button, star rating, screenshots and...

let's pay gaming media to give guaranteed 9/10, four hour gameplay reviews, for early access hands on.

I'm so glad that dick pics worked you have no idea...and all that cyberpunk fiasko and shout out to all people who still play Anthem and Fallout 77.

[metalgod88]

It's almost never the developers release a game completely broken or build features that use loot box mechanics. It's leadership. It's their job to have an overall strategic plan with a desired state and a launch date in mind. They need to look at the game they're trying to built, look at the experience they have, and determine a realistic timeline that works for everyone working on the project.

It's leadership that falls short, thus creating deadlines that are impossible to meet, which applies insane pressure on the developers to perform. It's not the developers who should be receiving all the criticism, but the leadership because ultimately, they failed their team.

The developers are 9 times out of 10 gamers just like us and just want to build something they would enjoy playing.

[Hofstaderman]

I miss the good old days where you got your news from game magazines. No internet, no idiots, no platform for them to voice their vitriol. That’s was the sole reserve of school lunch breaks…

[windmill145]

Sorry but all I took from this is Twitter is a horrible toxic place

[PhillyDillyDee]

I dont really understand why anyone would want to be on twitter; Or any social media platform for that matter. Any rational person can see at a glance that the negatives of SM far outweigh the positives. I’m just glad I didnt grow up with this crap.

[Killer2020UK]

Differentiate hate from respectful criticism ya dumbasses. The former is out of order, the latter is valid.

[rlow1]

Not surprised in the least. With the cancel culture the internet is full of entitled people spewing crap because they don’t like said person, place, or thing.
But companies have egged this on by responding or even firing people.

[isarai]

How about they fight back against toxic investors/publishers coarsing them to monetize everything and spark gambling addictions in children and adults alike.