Ideally people would stop being terrible, but in terms of effective and practical policy that's sort of on par with thoughts-and-prayers.
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Epic’s Statement on Misinformation & Abuse [See Staff Post] [UP: Devs release statement]
- Thread starter anastiel
- Start date
Ideally people would stop being terrible, but in terms of effective and practical policy that's sort of on par with thoughts-and-prayers.
Pretty cool how literally the second line of the staff post says "It is not the time to drop one sentence of condolence before launching into a spiel about how Epic and their partners are also bad." and two people caught bans for it in the first 10 posts and y'all still can't fucking help yourselves
I think the point they were making is that Epic can't really lead that conversation because it'd be hypocritical. No one would take it seriously. But you're right that's true of any AAA developer or publisher
It's not just the "they brought this on themselves by making fun of gamers" literal death threat defense force comments on here that are disappointing. It's also the "I'm upset because it's so inconvenient for me that a targeted harassment campaign has overshadowed my ability to criticize a product."
User Banned (2 weeks): ignoring the modpost; antagonizing and generalizing other users
Also, since capital G Gamers are capital T Terrible, there is NO way to address the community when a dev announces that their game is exclusive to the EGS because for so many people they see the letters EGS, think:
and do this:
and do this:
You got me there, I just don't know what else to say. All the hate, death threats and shit being spewed around is just so fucking tiring.
Yeah I know, we're in for a ride.
If people can't see that sending developers death threats over a platform exclusivity deal is no better than Gamergate, then what the hell have we learned in the last 5 years?
This shit makes me depressed. Hope the dev team survives this.
This shit makes me depressed. Hope the dev team survives this.
I feel for them getting abused. This is also more evidence itself that harassment and abuse get us nowhere and no one should ever resort to this stuff regardless of how they feel. It kills any real discussions or criticisms and makes the whole thing a damn mess for everyone. EPIC are not good guys in general but they are absolutely one now in regards to this.
User Banned (2 weeks): ignoring the modpost
I think the best way to combat this is for both Epic and the Devs to work tightly together when announcing their deals. Devs should not be the target of harassment and at the same time a lot of them could use help from an established PR team when its time to announce their partnership with Epic. The Ooblets scandal showed the worst of both worlds in my opinion.
They need to be transparent and let people know about the deal with as much time as possible. At the same time a lot of people would do well to remember that the EGS is relatively new and a lot of games that end up going exclusive for it would've been announced way before the store existed in the first place. As such they would've, by necessity, already been announced for Steam.
They need to be transparent and let people know about the deal with as much time as possible. At the same time a lot of people would do well to remember that the EGS is relatively new and a lot of games that end up going exclusive for it would've been announced way before the store existed in the first place. As such they would've, by necessity, already been announced for Steam.
All I can say is I wish the best to the devs and hope that things die down soon enough. I'm sure 'G'amers won't let them forget about this faux pas of them, but maybe this will serve as the wake up call this and other communities need to stop being so toxic.
User Banned: (2 Weeks): Ignoring Staff Post
I mean, it was worse than the storefront. One dev was acting overly aggressive and paranoid on discord afterwards, and that got a lot of people riled up. But this has gone so far beyond that now that it's surreal and absurd and stupid. Such senseless violent fucking noise.
It's amazing how little some people care about the people that make games.
Here you have a couple of indie developers, which has to be the least secure job you could take in this day and age, that took a deal to secure the future of their studio and their livelihoods and a bunch of troglodytes gnash their teeth and think that they're on the level of actual murders. For taking a deal to put their game on another store. It's baffling to me that anyone could be this mad about what the Ooblets devs did.
I can only hope that eventually this all blows over and they can finish their game (and make more games) in peace.
Here you have a couple of indie developers, which has to be the least secure job you could take in this day and age, that took a deal to secure the future of their studio and their livelihoods and a bunch of troglodytes gnash their teeth and think that they're on the level of actual murders. For taking a deal to put their game on another store. It's baffling to me that anyone could be this mad about what the Ooblets devs did.
I can only hope that eventually this all blows over and they can finish their game (and make more games) in peace.
It's understandable that people may be disappointed, but there is a proper way to show displeasure without disrespecting one another.
The reaction to the whole Epic thing is absurd, it's so toxic even here, which is a far better place than other gaming forums, that it just leaves me worried for developers and other industry folk safety.
Yes, EGS is a far worse store/launcher than Steam, it offers less features, I understand, that's unfortunate, but that's not something to go beyond a "I won't be buying on EGS, will wait for the Steam release".
Like many folks have already posted here, if the topic is so goddamn toxic here, imagine how it was back on places like 8chan, and is on 4chan or on some of the shittier gaming subreddits. Actual fucking danger.
Yes, EGS is a far worse store/launcher than Steam, it offers less features, I understand, that's unfortunate, but that's not something to go beyond a "I won't be buying on EGS, will wait for the Steam release".
Like many folks have already posted here, if the topic is so goddamn toxic here, imagine how it was back on places like 8chan, and is on 4chan or on some of the shittier gaming subreddits. Actual fucking danger.
This is just fucking pathetic. I've largely ignored discussions on this subject because of how shitty the tone of them has been so I was unaware just how bad this had gotten.
Hopefully things die down soon and they're able to focus on the game without all this shit on their backs.
The coordinated harassment of devs on social media (including Discord and Reddit), on top of the creation and promotion of fake materials to gain momentum among the passer-bys, is disturbing. It is even more troublesome as the people engaging in these awful actions have likely never had any intent of purchasing the game at all: they are jumping on the harassment train for the sake of being mean and abusive to the devs, whom they consider easy targets.
It is important to have in mind what the game looks like. It is a peaceful game, there is no way it attracts toxic customers who would try to bully devs.
It is important to have in mind what the game looks like. It is a peaceful game, there is no way it attracts toxic customers who would try to bully devs.
The amount of flak the developers engaging with Epic's store get is unreal, not to mention the people behind the store itself. No one deserves harassment, full stop. It's the same bs that hit Capcom and NT during DmC's reveal and release six years ago (and many, many other games and devs, of course), and it's still absolutely unjustified and unforgivable.
Thank you for putting this into words. It got really bad in the earlier thread.
The attacking of devs is really going over the top here. Especially making fake discord/twitter screenshots to try to frame the developers as saying things they never did. Its one thing to have a distaste for the direction Epic is heading with their store its another entirely to actually harass and attack people. At the very least its good that Epic is publicly reiterating its commitment to its partners here. I really feel bad for the ooblets devs here they've been a real lightning rod for abuse over the last two weeks.
'Don't harass, abuse, or send death threats to developers' feels like such an obvious thing to say that I almost feel it's trite and a waste of time to post.
And then I realise that plenty of people think this behaviour is acceptable or even laudable. How do we tackle such a thing?
And then I realise that plenty of people think this behaviour is acceptable or even laudable. How do we tackle such a thing?
the reality is that for some people, gaming IS a big part of their identity.
that really has nothing to do with mistreatment of others, at all.
You would think after GG people would have realize this but instead it seems like all they done is just double down on it.
What I doubt youtubers told them is to fucking harass, send death threats, show doctored screenshots and videos faking them and all the shit that is actually happening.
Hell we're having this thread rebooted because people HERE of all place can't hold their horses.
Do NOT kill the messenger. The only people guilty of being assholes is the assholes themselves.
It has everything to do with it.
You don't see this level of insanity when say Friends leaves Netflix to go to HBO MAX even though that actually requires you to pay for another service.
Why?
Because tv watching isn't an identity.
Sorry I will spare no words about gaming as an identity is a problem and how much I think that's part and parcel with why the unique toxicity takes hold in gaming
theres a very good youtube video that connects that lack of personal identity to the more anti-social behaviors exhibited by some of the gaming crowd. Not gonna use labels, but it's a worthy watch, if I can remember the name.
That's actually a pretty good point and that's another perfect example of hobby as identity
Yes.
Let's never forget that touching on this, threatening that fragile identity, was one of the first things that made people lose their minds and led to years of insanity this is the latest episode of. The toxicity was always there, but a woman putting her finger on it crystallized it into sheer hatred.
To be very clear, I'm not blaming Leigh Alexander at all, I'm just agreeing that this notion of identity is central to every harassment campaign of the past five years.
You do realize most of these kids didn't come to the conclusion that harassment is ok on their own. It's almost always a culmination of cults of personalities telling them "it's ok to be angry" for years. Sure Jim Sterling doesn't personally advocate to harrass the devs but when he makes a video essentially fanning the flames of the Ooblets controversy and putting the devs in a shitty light, what do you think was going to happen. And Jim Sterling isn't the only nor is he the biggest one doing it, tons of youtubers make bank fueling the outrage machine.
Literally more than once people have been radicalized because their favourite game got lightly criticized
I mean Ian Miles Cheong literally joined Gamergate after Anita critiqued Witcher 3 lmao
certainly not having any personal identity is a different issue, and anything external that you attach all of your identity to is to your detriment and dangerous situation. That's true whether the subject is gaming (ITT), sports (we see them as "superfans" in body paint looking crazy and getting in fights), movies (some star wars fans and how they treat franchise actors. also we see them sometimes on the non-gaming side; Endgame box office thread is a good example), gang members, and so on.
Nothing wrong with gaming or anything else making up part of your identity. All of our identities are a mixture of the things we enjoy greatly. The issue is when you allow anything to define you in whole (or anywhere near it). I certainly agree that's a problem, but I would also say it is certainly not unique to gaming.
Well, I'd say Netflix doesn't really have front-facing people making those announcements since it'd just be their Twitter/Facebook/etc accounts that would get the brunt of the hate and even then, it'd be people saying they're dropping Netflix and whatnot. So much of what happens in TV and movies is directly out of the hands of the people making the shows or starring in them that it's hard for people to harass somebody that could actually make a difference, whereas the people making indie games or even bigger games are usually on Twitter to receive all of that hate ASAP. It's the weird nature of the business where the creators of things you like or hate are easily accessible to send love or death threats.
Meanwhile on Steam you got communities like https://steamcommunity.com/groups/NoExclusiveGames
With posts about how these devs divisive whats happened to them.
With posts about how these devs divisive whats happened to them.
As someone who hasn't really been part of the PC Gaming community since the days prior to Steam's inception, it's been downright fascinating, if not horrifying, to watch all of this unfold. The anonymity of the internet has really emboldened many individuals to voice their vitriolic opinions against others and it's real bummer.
I was hopeful by the year 2019 that the gaming community would have largely moved past the tribalism that has dominated the industry for so long, but it almost seems like a lot of folks are doubling down on it instead.
The world's already a shitty enough place as it is, games should be an escape from that.
I was hopeful by the year 2019 that the gaming community would have largely moved past the tribalism that has dominated the industry for so long, but it almost seems like a lot of folks are doubling down on it instead.
The world's already a shitty enough place as it is, games should be an escape from that.
22 posts total with about 6 participants. It's not even relevant beyond the spectacle of it existing.
Jesus Christ, that's awful. Threatening, harassing, or gaslighting developers over EGS deals is not OK, full stop.
I don't think you watched Jim's video if your claiming people get radicalized from it. That's really not a fair statement I feel given the content of that video. The Radicals come from places like Reddit Communities, 4chan, 8chan and yes some of the more extreme YouTubers like for example 'The Quartering'. Places in which the communities are allowed to use violent speech and encourage each other and no one gets called out for it.