Game Dev Sick Of The Hatred From Gamers

I dunno, I think most of the hate is directed at the publishers that destroy a game, either through tearing it apart for DLC, stick a wonderful DRM into it, that interrupts gameplay because you lost internet connectivity, or the game was rushed into publication, even though the dev's weren't finished, because the deadline was cut short by a couple of months.

I feel sorry for the developers, they sacrifice thousands of hours, for something they love, only to have the publisher crap on them, and then get the undeserved hate from the customers of said game...Although there are some games that are truly s#!te, look at Duke Nukem Forever, or Dai Katana (especially Dai Katana, that killed the Ion Storm branch it was birthed from, and made Romero disappear for a few years, held the record prior to DNF for the least likely to be published).
 
Happy gamers are too busy playing games to post how awesome their experience is. This is always going to be the case. When someone is upset they want to be heard. If someone is happy they enjoy the moment.
 
Measures of effectiveness, not measures of performance; it doesn't matter a whit if you worked 12+ hours a day if you birthed a pile of shit.
 
cageymaru said:
At that point, you stop caring and your games become lifeless. Case in point World of Warcraft expansions. CoD. Diablo III. Insert name of game here. I watch developer live streams of the game Warframe. The developers have asked nicely that the users please stop leaving them death threats in their inbox on the forums every time that they refine the way the game works. Over the past year I have watched 2 of the developers start to clam up on saying things that might infuriate the community. Those were the most outspoken members of the development community and also the ones with the most death threats. If going by the comments posted during the live stream, the female moderator / community manager would have been raped thousands of times if they knew where she lived. She comments less and less on the forums also. It's like these assholes making what they think are anonymous comments are killing these artists and making them regret their career choice.

These guys make their living on being able to read the forums and gauge what the community thinks of their work. Their sole purpose is to add enough activities to the game to keep as many different types of personalities engaged in their game so more will come try it. If they cut themselves off from the community then they lose their edge. If they start ignoring posters with issues, then they become thick skinned and no longer care about the art and making it appeal to many different types of people. if they just shut up and work, then their game will become generic as they are just going through the motions.

If they post something negative back to their community everyone would have a shit attack and blow it completely out of proportion. So they can't even respond in kind to the jerks. I don't want my visits to the forums of my favorite game to be like going to the DMV for a license renewal. I want to be able to talk to the developers freely and they feel like they can trust me enough that they can be honest in their responses even if it isn't what I want to hear.

Maybe I'm old school. That's the way my parents raised me though.
Click to expand...

I didn't say they should cut themselves off from the community. Just ignore crazy and/or stupid people. Cut the sob story, not "don't talk anymore".

In fact, developers are interacting more with the community in this day and age than they ever have. Most of them that I deal with are overjoyed to be more hands on with the community.
 
Outamyhead said:
I dunno, I think most of the hate is directed at the publishers that destroy a game, either through tearing it apart for DLC, stick a wonderful DRM into it, that interrupts gameplay because you lost internet connectivity, or the game was rushed into publication, even though the dev's weren't finished, because the deadline was cut short by a couple of months.
Click to expand...

Exactly. If he is a developer, he isn't the target.

We hate the suits that force all the stupid decisions on the developers. Always connected DRM, nickle and dimeing people with DLC were driven by suits, not the developers.
 
I think he is sincere when he talks about a programmer does not want to ship a broken product. That leaves what company are you working for because people in management really don't care for what the code is or who it is written by management looks for date to ship so the company can get money.

Are you suitably employed if you know your "boss" his boss just shuffles shit and calls it a finished product and leaves it up for the lawyers to handle it after it hit the stores.

How complacent is your companies management when it comes to quality control what are the obvious pitfalls in this process that for the simple reason happen way to often in the software industry.

You give people a reason to complain, deal with it one way or the other.........(no that does not justify the united internet drama queen club for making death wishes) ...
 
If the pressure is too much he could always hop off the big publisher gravy train and join one of the indie developers ... between GOG, Steam, Kickstarter, and other venues they have never had more opportunities to connect with audiences than ever before ... also, one of the advantages of working on a KS funded project (if you were serious about it and not scamming) is you get access to your most passionate customers during development (the ones willing to give you money months or years before launch) ... these are the fans who will give you more well thought out feedback and let you know what features are working or not working before you launch ... these are also generally fans of games or a specific gaming genre and they want you and the genre to succeed ;)
 
I see his point, but on the other side, name a profession that doesn't get hate. I work at a consumer electronics company and sometimes reading the reviews can be annoying, but you just ignore the "people who made this should die" only pay attention to constructive things. Even the "this is the best thing in the world, my life is complete" type praise is equally as useless IMO. The real bad hate from gamers typically comes from game breaking bugs, or launch failures causing people to not even be able to play the game for over a week, yea that can make me bitter too,yes this can sound rather '1st world problemish' but imagine buying any product and being told you cannot get your money back, but it should start working in another week, and for the next few months it will only partially work. I just think game companies need launch day demos so we can sample and see if it is worth it before buying.

ironically, he writes an article b*tching about people b*tching. He must have been one of those kids where everyone got a trophy because we are all winners!
 
Fact of the matter is - IF EA would actually listen to the complaints about them, they might be better for it.

I'm not talking about the "you suck, your game sucks DIE" type crap, but actual constructive comments on why gamers don't appreciate or like the product. Most businesses listen to their customers. Not EA, and honestly, it's their policies and boneheaded decisions that earn the ire from gamers.

I haven't purchased an EA product in almost a decade. If it says EA, I pass. Burn me once - blacklisted. I won't have anything else to do with your products.
 
He has a point. The people doing the grunt work - the programmers, artists, and design teams - don't deserve that kind of flak. That flak should be directed at the corporate management that cares nothing for the gamer beyond how much money they can squeeze out of them and rushes production to get something on the shelf before it's fully workable. I know a few people that are in the gaming industry and they're there because (surprise) they love video games and want to make them. I don't know anyone that's thinking "All these gamers are tards, let's ship something that's crap just to piss them off!".

As for the trolls and idiots... article's author should just ignore them and move on. Arguing with them is pointless, explaining anything to them is a waste of time, and trying to placate them is impossible. As the expression goes, "haters gonna hate".
 
He say that as if gamers are playing their games for free.

Anyway, isn't the bashing usually directed at companies anyway? Maybe it's just me, but the complains I usually see are directed towards EA, Ubisoft, Blizzard. I don't recall anyone ever single out a certain programmer or a writer. I think most gamers don't even know who these individuals are.

Publishers certainly do deserve the bashing if their products are broken, they are the only making the final decision
 
Icemastr said:
I think the author has a great point and he is right.

He gives an example: "I hope the idiot people who made this just kill themselves after they kill their family"

With game developers so connected to forums, social media, and their email easily available it is so easy for them to hear these comments.

I work on products that millions of people use and I never hear these kind of comments, I can only imagine how it would make me feel to hear such things about something I had worked hard on.

How would you feel getting such negative speech and death threats sent to your email about something you had poured years of your life into? This kind of speech isn't acceptable, and it is sad that so far the comments here have dismissed his opinion.
Click to expand...
I think a lot of people are missing that point. He is talking about a level of hate that a lot of posters here don't understand. He mentions the death treats and blatantly OOC statements and not just people whining about bugs that only affect them.

Megalith said:
Wait, he thinks that the video game demographic consists of mature, rational people?
Click to expand...
Haha, good one. I chuckled.

Raudulfr said:
People talk shit about everyone and everything on the Internet. It isn't limited to game devs. They are not special. No one's out to get them.
Click to expand...

Yea people say all kinds of shit they wouldn't IRL due to anonymity and no immediate consequence to their actions thanks to the internet. But yea half the problem with gaming, if you see a problem with it, are the users themselves. Gamers are never satisfied and I have seen this concept proven again and again on these very forums. Personally I love gaming right now and there are more games that come out that I want to play than I have time for. I am finally getting into BF4 and apparently it's better I waited because my experience has been pretty flawless.

Also most gamers are idiots and have no idea who to direct their hate to in the first place. I know a lot of you have seen people blame developers for publisher issues and vice versa.

Then, people think that buying and playing video games for 5+ years makes them an expert on AAA game development and business administration. This then brings out all these armchair analysts making these ambitious-ass statements like they even know how to read a company's balance book.
 
The major AAA gaming industry is at its most customer hostile - ever. They wonder why people express vile towards them? Come on now. Big publishers, developers etc... have become so intensely short term profit focused that they're spreading a variety of pathogens through game design and implementation.

These are the people who basically want to have complete control of everything you do, and you to constantly be paying out the ass for the privilege. Look at how DRM and DLC have exploded. Look at how so many MMO companies have switched from reasonable subscriptions to "Free 2 Play" Item Mall horrors because they saw Koreans willing to pay $100/month or more for hats in $5 increments, or spend $10 to rent a mount for a week in a MMO. Repugnant! They think they can "boil the frog slowly" and sadly, for many, it works. Then look to "In App Purchases" and the growth of such games on mobile platforms and now moving beyond. Look at Zynga, Facebook games, or the Highest Grossing Google Play platform - a "free or $0.99" game may cost more than $50 to unlock everything, if not more! Then look at games pushed out before they're ready, forced to be dumbed down to the lowest common denominator (especially for Consoles), or monetized a good idea into a horrid one.

This isn't just an issue of players being mean to poor lil EA because they found a bug. Developers and publishers have created a culture of misdirection and outright disdain - their customer is the enemy, to be placated with as little expenditure as possible and to extract maximum profit and control through any means necessary, preferably obfuscated as they change from one ruse to another. I have zero sympathy for them.

If it wasn't for the handful of top tier devs who are trying to do something different (ie Valve. Cloud Imperium Games, etc) and a slew of indie studios who are still making great games for great prices (see: Starbound by Chucklefish, for Linux coming soon!), I'd be sick of the lot of them. I applaud those that can resist the business practices and pathogenic ideas of the console industry, big publishers and greedy developers, and support them financially when the provide something I like. However, the vast majority deserve to have the very same disdain they drop on their customers returned to them - however, it is important to be as articulate as possible "EA SUX" can be dismissed as just flamers on the net, but "You ruined SimCity because of Origin and DRM" is a valid complaint that can't so easily be turned aside.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
I didn't say they should cut themselves off from the community. Just ignore crazy and/or stupid people. Cut the sob story, not "don't talk anymore".

In fact, developers are interacting more with the community in this day and age than they ever have. Most of them that I deal with are overjoyed to be more hands on with the community.
Click to expand...

I'm noticing that more and more developers are initially having fun with their communities and then becoming distant as the game becomes more popular. It's not that they suddenly lose interest in the project, they start attracting the wrong set of gamers that hate that they have to breathe air to stay alive. The smart developers hire lots of community forum moderators to weed through constructive criticism as they can't handle the nastiness of some of the assholes that play their games. Better to do that than go home depressed everyday.
 
Some of those "threats" should be reported to the police, as for others, i can see his point, but, if you work on a project that targets 14-25 year olds, then you should expect haters, most have no idea what a great game is anyway. Everything is so dumbed down, cause god forbid you have to look for a location, or read something, instead of a magic floating icon that tells you where to go. I do not blame this guy, or other programers, i blame the people at the top who take great ideas and turn them into generic crap for kids with ADD, and probably dont even play the crap they are distributing.
 
"So if we the developers give you the fans a broken product, let us know. If our game has issues, talk about them. But please be respectful."

We -ARE- respectful, for a while, but then 99.9999999999~% of you fuckers cover your ears going "LA LA LA LA WE'RE GAME DESIGNERS WE KNOW MORE THAN YOU FUCK OFF IF YOU'RE SO GOOD AT MAKING GAMES HOW COME YOU AREN'T MAKING THEM FUCK YOU!"

Lets have fun with this thread, lets list games released in the last year or so where dev's covered their fucking ears and went FUCK YOU to their fans.

-Mass Effect 3
-Devil May Cry reboot (The dev's of this one not only mocking the fans of the previous games, openly telling people that didn't like what they were doing with the game to "fuck off" complete with flipping them the bird on journalist sites, AND at the end of the game flipping off the camera)
-Dead Space 3
-Dragon Age 2
-Crysis 2
-Sim City 2013
-Diablo 3
-Titanfall (Predicting it now to be shit given they've completely shut out all fan input, and that was before the 6 vs 6 fiasco)
-Destiny (Predicting it to be shit because dev's are ignoring fan input when it got revealed the game is basically a low population arena shooter, and the single player missions virtually non-existent when that's what they marketed the game as, a "Vivid world" you played with other people, like some multiplayer STALKER game)
 
Phoenix333 said:
He has a point. The people doing the grunt work - the programmers, artists, and design teams - don't deserve that kind of flak. That flak should be directed at the corporate management that cares nothing for the gamer...
Click to expand...

For the most part it is. Most of the crap we hate wasn't put there by people who love games. It was put there by soul-less MBAs.

This guy though is a whiny, self-centered baby. He acts as if this is unique to his industry.

He says:
"Do thousands of people say they want to kill Tom Cruise if he plays a scene in a way they don't like? They might criticize it, but they don't tell him to go kill himself because they disliked what he did. "

They do in fact. Many times worse than he has experienced. Has anyone actually said this anonymous developer should die, by name. Here is what a quick Google on Cruise shows:

Tom Cruise must die Videos, Repeated Tom Cruise death stories, blogs titled Tom Cruise must die, Death Threats...
 
This is an issue with anything. People that love your product / service don't normally rush out to talk about it. Those that hate it however will.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
I would. My online "personality" is my real personality.

Like I said, ignore the crazy people. Those that make threats or can't piece together a coherent thought aren't deserving of anyone's time, let alone someone who works 80hrs a week on entertainment.

Those that have reasonable complaints can be ignored, too, but only if they obviously don't fit the target demographic for your game. Anything constructive, even when negative, should be at least considered.

It's part of the job.
Click to expand...

So, when was the last time you told a complete stranger to shut the fuck up?

I wouldn't even say that to you here even though I think you are full of shit. :)
 
Here's another one for prediction is going to suck ass, Diablo 3 Expansion

"We're shutting down the auction house, because you didn't like it"

"Its not the fact we didn't like it, you made finding loot fricking impossible"

"Well, we're going to try and bring back old style trading"

"This is great! Thank you"

"All the top top top end gear in Diablo 3 expansion will be Bind to Account when picked up, so you can't trade it, you'll have to grind even more than you had to in Diablo 3 to earn gold to get the gear you wanted before"

"........................"
 
cageymaru said:
I'm noticing that more and more developers are initially having fun with their communities and then becoming distant as the game becomes more popular. It's not that they suddenly lose interest in the project, they start attracting the wrong set of gamers that hate that they have to breathe air to stay alive. The smart developers hire lots of community forum moderators to weed through constructive criticism as they can't handle the nastiness of some of the assholes that play their games. Better to do that than go home depressed everyday.
Click to expand...

Just don't become Bioware and you'll be fine. Compare their community to a company like Obsidian. MUCH different vibe. Look how active someone like JE Sawyer is. That guy loves explaining things to the fanbase.
 
Sanitarium said:
If you make a shit game what do you expect?
Click to expand...

All the while people like you sit in their computer chair babbling about how things should be.

Why don't you make things how they should be a create for all of us the best game that you can?
 
Simple fact of life. There are some people you can give a wheelbarrow of money to and they will complain about the container.

Those people just so happen to all have internet access. :p
 
Krenum said:
All the while people like you sit in their computer chair babbling about how things should be.

Why don't you make things how they should be a create for all of us the best game that you can?
Click to expand...

Holy cow. You've just defeated the logic of all critics of all things ever in history. Or not. Yea, I'm thinking not.
 
I don't understand the who internet hostility thing either. I mean nobody acts this way to their family, friends, co-workers, etc. Only onlne when behind a keyboard, and its usually the young people.

Why is everyone so mad? Is your lives suck so bad they feel they have to vent out on the internet, so they feel better about themselves.

This site is really bad too, I never see people posting happy positive comments. Just recently I was attacked here because of my PS4 gets hacked thread. The people who were ripping on me, do you feel better now? Glad I could help.
 
Krenum said:
All the while people like you sit in their computer chair babbling about how things should be.

Why don't you make things how they should be a create for all of us the best game that you can?
Click to expand...

Fwuh?

that was the sound that came out of my mouth after reading that

fwuh
 
Speaking for Diablo III it was hating on the developers because they truly weren't listening to the gaming community at all until way after the release, and it was too late. After all we didn't know what fun was until they told us...but threats and childish behavior is totally uncalled for so I can see them clamming up.
 
Krenum said:
All the while people like you sit in their computer chair babbling about how things should be.

Why don't you make things how they should be a create for all of us the best game that you can?
Click to expand...

Is that the standard now ... if I haven't written a game I can't complain about playing a game :confused:

Although there are many folks who like to argue just for the sake of arguing there are many that provide thoughtful and well reasoned feedback ... besides, as consumers we often have strong opinions about what we would like to see on the market and we sometimes feel the need to share those opinions with those that have the ability to deliver the products we want ... and for the internet versions of the mob, one just has to learn to tune them out :cool:
 
Too bad it's from a conveniently anonymous author. That means it's convenient for me to ignore it entirely....;) (I didn't get past the words "anonymous author," and why should I?)
 
Raudulfr said:
Go to IMDB and see them saying the most vile things about actors, producers, directors, screenwriters, etc. Do you think any of them gives a shit about some Internet troll? No.
Click to expand...

Actually sometimes they do. Have you ever seen the movie Heckler?
 
kbrickley said:
Is that the standard now ... if I haven't written a game I can't complain about playing a game :confused:

Although there are many folks who like to argue just for the sake of arguing there are many that provide thoughtful and well reasoned feedback ... besides, as consumers we often have strong opinions about what we would like to see on the market and we sometimes feel the need to share those opinions with those that have the ability to deliver the products we want ... and for the internet versions of the mob, one just has to learn to tune them out :cool:
Click to expand...

Here is a group that is doing it right with regards to internet feedback
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/wasteland-2/posts/716786

Act like a professional and you get treated like one.
 
ShamisOMally said:
"So if we the developers give you the fans a broken product, let us know. If our game has issues, talk about them. But please be respectful."

We -ARE- respectful, for a while, but then 99.9999999999~% of you fuckers cover your ears going "LA LA LA LA WE'RE GAME DESIGNERS WE KNOW MORE THAN YOU FUCK OFF IF YOU'RE SO GOOD AT MAKING GAMES HOW COME YOU AREN'T MAKING THEM FUCK YOU!"

Lets have fun with this thread, lets list games released in the last year or so where dev's covered their fucking ears and went FUCK YOU to their fans.

-Mass Effect 3
-Devil May Cry reboot (The dev's of this one not only mocking the fans of the previous games, openly telling people that didn't like what they were doing with the game to "fuck off" complete with flipping them the bird on journalist sites, AND at the end of the game flipping off the camera)
-Dead Space 3
-Dragon Age 2
-Crysis 2
-Sim City 2013
-Diablo 3
-Titanfall (Predicting it now to be shit given they've completely shut out all fan input, and that was before the 6 vs 6 fiasco)
-Destiny (Predicting it to be shit because dev's are ignoring fan input when it got revealed the game is basically a low population arena shooter, and the single player missions virtually non-existent when that's what they marketed the game as, a "Vivid world" you played with other people, like some multiplayer STALKER game)
Click to expand...

Good post, totally agree. I would throw Payday 2 on that list as well...fun game for awhile, but the developers seem to be allergic to fun so they keep making changes that only a tiny minority of people actually want.
 
ShamisOMally said:
"So if we the developers give you the fans a broken product, let us know. If our game has issues, talk about them. But please be respectful."

We -ARE- respectful, for a while, but then 99.9999999999~% of you fuckers cover your ears going "LA LA LA LA WE'RE GAME DESIGNERS WE KNOW MORE THAN YOU FUCK OFF IF YOU'RE SO GOOD AT MAKING GAMES HOW COME YOU AREN'T MAKING THEM FUCK YOU!"

Lets have fun with this thread, lets list games released in the last year or so where dev's covered their fucking ears and went FUCK YOU to their fans.

-Mass Effect 3
-Devil May Cry reboot (The dev's of this one not only mocking the fans of the previous games, openly telling people that didn't like what they were doing with the game to "fuck off" complete with flipping them the bird on journalist sites, AND at the end of the game flipping off the camera)
-Dead Space 3
-Dragon Age 2
-Crysis 2
-Sim City 2013
-Diablo 3
-Titanfall (Predicting it now to be shit given they've completely shut out all fan input, and that was before the 6 vs 6 fiasco)
-Destiny (Predicting it to be shit because dev's are ignoring fan input when it got revealed the game is basically a low population arena shooter, and the single player missions virtually non-existent when that's what they marketed the game as, a "Vivid world" you played with other people, like some multiplayer STALKER game)
Click to expand...

The main problem I see with EA right now, their Beta testing at a controlled environment in Redwood City, during a working day, or some crap time in the evening dragging on into the early morning...basically no one shows up, so no feed back, even for the gift card as a form of paying expenses (I work, and I'm sure as hell not sacrificing my evening at home for being stuck in another room for six to eight hours), the only one I can recently recall as an open Beta, is Battlefield 4 and that still has some problems.

I think they recently did a controlled test of Titanfall (I got an email, but I didn't bother going, because it doesn't fit with my schedule, it was an Xbox and PC test, and it's a couple of months away, like the Sim City invite I got near it's release), so yet again, like Sim City, they aren't bothering to get feedback from multiple PC configurations, and internet connection types, or general gameplay feedback, so it may be a dead horse after initial sales die down.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
What you would do has little to do with what I would do.
Click to expand...

You have to be a fucking politician.
ANSER THE QUESTION!

When was the last time you told a complete stranger to shut the fuck up?

Never, that is when. Just admit that you are a normal level-headed human being!
 
Spazturtle said:
What a cry baby.
Click to expand...

Ducman69 said:
Awww... baby wanna wowipop?

Man up bro, and grow a skin.
Click to expand...

I came in here to check to see just how horrible some of the people on these forums are. I was not dissapointed (I mean with the rampant religious fanboys of AMD and Nvidia, it was not unexpected). You people are like a disease of this earth, searching for vulnerable people so that you can rape their minds and make them kill themselves. I guess the people who suffer from PTSD, depression and trauma should all man up to eh (based on the slippery slope theory)?
 
LeninGHOLA said:
Just don't become Bioware and you'll be fine. Compare their community to a company like Obsidian. MUCH different vibe. Look how active someone like JE Sawyer is. That guy loves explaining things to the fanbase.
Click to expand...

Bioware was fine, until EA got hold of them.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top