Harassment of SWTOR Developers

SWTORStrategies: "Stop. Just stop for a minute. We like to have fun here. Sometimes we even like to push the boundaries. We are not strangers to controversy. That said, I read something incredibly disturbing today and we need to take some time to discuss it"

[lotta]

Human garbage.

And people want more transparency, and then this is what happens. Obviously, this is a few bad apples, the majority want more dialogue with the devs and these people aren't going out of their way to harass this guy.

This is two steps back for the game.

[kamper]

The harassment was done by a few bad apples, but it was the mob that taught them that developers didn't need to be treated like humans.

Remember when people said that Bioware should be working over Christmas to fix bugs instead of spending time with their families? Or when they demanded compensation because they had been personally insulted when Bioware used the ability to heal as a balancing characteristic for some classes? Remember all the times when performance issues were waved aside with the explanation that they'd be easy to fix if the developers weren't idiots who refused to do their jobs?

Those are the people who make this happen. There are always a few bad apples. I'm sure I'll walk past a dozen people who'd like to punch me for my political beliefs this week, but society teaches them that such behavior is not accepted.

The SWTOR forums (and reddit and N4G, to a lesser extent) do not. There are quite a few members who routinely de-humanize the developers, and spread the general sentiment that the developers are not to be respected or sympathized with and that they should be antagonized when they make decisions that conflict with your own opinions.
This is the natural and totally foreseeable consequence to that environment.

I'm all for a healthy debate. But I'm entirely opposed to treating the developers like they are the enemy. If that's not what we as a community believe, then we should start acting like that every day, not just the day after a developer is harassed.