Answering GDC’s 2023 survey, 78% of respondents said they considered the harassment and toxicity developers receive from the public to be a serious issue. A simple sentiment is often the most effective, and the title of Dragon Age veteran Mark Darrah’s latest video cuts right to the heart of it: “Your $70 doesn’t buy you cruelty.”

You don’t have to like a game, and you don’t have stay quiet if you have complaints, says Darrah. You’re entitled to be angry, and you’re entitled to express that anger. “If you are mad at that Ubisoft game, be mad at Ubisoft,” he says. “Express your anger to Ubisoft or the studio that made the game. But you cross a line when you start being cruel about it.” (Thanks, PC Gamer and GamesRadar)

    • TheRtRevKaiser@beehaw.orgM
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      23 days ago

      If you can’t tell the difference between being upset that a game was made badly and being cruel to the developers, you may need to take a step back.

    • apotheotic (she/her)@beehaw.org
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      22 days ago

      Of course there are innocent people, what the fuck.

      Be gleeful about it failing to sell, yes. But don’t be cruel. Don’t be glad that people who did their jobs have lost their jobs because a CEO wants to preserve investors’ profits. All the bad decisions that made the game what it was, in a huge company like EA or Ubisoft, were probably because of upper management and not because the people who lose their jobs did their jobs poorly.

      Dunk the game on reviews, tell your friends it sucks, hell even laugh at the grumbling of the pre-orderers or the captive audience of fans who will die on the hill. But don’t be cruel.

      Be(e) kind.

      • Feydaikin@beehaw.org
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        22 days ago

        I have no personal vendetta against any of these individual Devs.

        My stake in this is slightly different. Like, when I heard about how Blizzard treated it’s own staff and then the whole sexual harassment thing popped up, I was done with them. From that point on, that company didn’t deserve to exist and I blacklisted them. So i try to keep up with gaming related news.

        More studios have joined that list since, for various reasons, and I find myself mostly playing indie titles from small upcoming developers now. I feel better about that.

        I do believe we should be(e) kind. But I also believe kindness is a two way street.

        • apotheotic (she/her)@beehaw.org
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          22 days ago

          But you see how this is different right? I boycott the vast majority of AAA publishers too, for the same reasons. That doesn’t mean I cheer when they do mass layoffs. It doesn’t sound like you do either.

          • Feydaikin@beehaw.org
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            22 days ago

            I see how it’s different. And I’m not making excuses for anyone.

            If anything, I’m saying I can understand where it’s coming from. But that doesn’t mean I’m onboard with it all.

    • terrrmus@beehaw.org
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      22 days ago

      Wait… when was this? Who did this?

      I know of some specific instances of like community managers or a single employee clapping back. Apparently they speak for every employee and the entire studio? Is that how this works?

    • BurnedDonutHole@ani.social
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      22 days ago

      This just reminding that Postal is the cause of all the violence because we played games on certain hardware. I’m pretty sure at the time if they had ISIS terrorist attacks they would blamed Postal as the cause.

    • wirelesswire@lemmy.zip
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      23 days ago

      It doesn’t matter how bad it was, it doesn’t justify or excuse the shithead behavior a lot of players are directing at individuals who worked on the game. As I stated in another comment, there’s a difference between saying “this game sucks” and personal attacks on individuals.

    • Ech@lemm.ee
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      23 days ago

      No. Not “fair”. You’re just justifying cruelty for the sake of cruelty.

  • sculd@beehaw.org
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    22 days ago

    Looking at some of the comments make be lost faith in humanity… Or maybe social media is just destined to be toxic

  • araneae@beehaw.org
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    22 days ago

    GAMERS ON THE WELL MANNERED PUPPY-GIRL ALPHA CHAD FEDERATED REDDIT ALTERNATIVE WHEN YOU BEG THEM NOT TO BE TOXIC TO THE DEVELOPER (THEY WILL DEFUSE THEIR SHITTINESS/THEY WILL NOT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY OR TAKE A TIRED DEVELOPER’S PLEAS GRACEFULLY)

    GROW UP fuckers. The game sucks, I’ve played it. I’ve also been playing increasinly bad Dragon Age games long enough to know ITS EA, ITS ALWAYS BEEN EA. Everything they touch turns to shit. Veilguard was a live service team-based wave survival game like ME3 multiplayer until eight months before launch and you can reeeaaally tell.

    I don’t give a fuck about blue haired devs, pronouns, none of that shit. If you do, grow up. Yes, Bioware is a skeleton crew with hack writers and a captain hired to go down with the ship and get the game out the door… BECAUSE OF EA.

    ARE YOU JUST NOW PLAYING VIDEO GAMES FOR THE FIRST TIME? DID YOU NOT KNOW ABOUT THE PUBLISHERS IN GENERAL?

    Gamergate’s still fucking going on. Bitching about Anita Sarkeesian in 2025 in response to a dev begging to stop being harassed, PATHETIC.