It's important not to extrapolate what a few assholes are doing to be representative of the majority. I've been following this topic for a bit, and the most common sentiment I've yet found...
It's important not to extrapolate what a few assholes are doing to be representative of the majority. I've been following this topic for a bit, and the most common sentiment I've yet found generally went "I get why you took Epic's money, that just makes sense — but why did you act like such an asshole about it in the blog post?" The only place I've seen much of any jackasses is on Twitter, which... well, that's not exactly surprising.
It's very easy to forget the reasonable people when there's monkeys in the room flinging shit for attention.
I apologize in advance if I'm misinterpreting, but it looks to me like you've taken my post as an assertion that we should stop worrying about this. That's absolutely not the case. I agree that...
I apologize in advance if I'm misinterpreting, but it looks to me like you've taken my post as an assertion that we should stop worrying about this. That's absolutely not the case. I agree that what these people have done is reprehensible and should not be forgotten whatsoever. I also agree this has almost certainly been very hard on a small group of people who without a doubt did not deserve it, and that if they think the internet is a cesspool of the absolute worst among society, I absolutely don't blame them, as people are being clearly and insanely vile to them.
Rather, when I say it's important to remember the proportions, what I'm concerned about here is that the reasonable people will be forgotten — or worse, lumped in with the crazies. Problems like this tend to cause the original event to be forgotten, and when the pieces of shit crawl out to spit acid, newcomers to the story may end up assuming that pieces of shit were all that was there from the start. Worst case scenario, this can lead to an entire category of opinion being completely discarded via the assumption that only loudmouthed cretins supported it.
I don't intend to ever underestimate the reach of those who seek to spread nothing but hate, and I'd never suggest ignoring them. I just want it to be remembered that before they arrived, those who disagreed (calmly and rationally) with Glumberland's initial post had a point.
I agree, but it's important to remember that our view of the situation is limited. We see mostly reasonable comments because we're operating on platforms with systems and moderators and community...
I agree, but it's important to remember that our view of the situation is limited. We see mostly reasonable comments because we're operating on platforms with systems and moderators and community norms that help separate the wheat from the absolute shit. What we don't see are the removed messages from those platforms, as well as the many messages the devs receive through private communications. The worst elements of what's going on are invisible to us, and that downplays the magnitude of their presence.
This happens a lot of times on controversial reddit posts. I'm European, so by the time I arrive to read a post, most comments are a 5+ hours old, the dust has settled on the ranking and...
I agree, but it's important to remember that our view of the situation is limited. We see mostly reasonable comments because we're operating on platforms with systems and moderators and community norms that help separate the wheat from the absolute shit.
This happens a lot of times on controversial reddit posts. I'm European, so by the time I arrive to read a post, most comments are a 5+ hours old, the dust has settled on the ranking and everything's fine and dandy. Which makes it really weird when the top comment is claiming something akin to "Wow, these comments are such a shitshow" while the thread seems completely fine for the most top comments.
My experience is that reddit has far less moderation during European hours. As a result there can be rule-breaking posts up for hours at a time. It's a lot harder to find EU mods for whatever...
My experience is that reddit has far less moderation during European hours. As a result there can be rule-breaking posts up for hours at a time. It's a lot harder to find EU mods for whatever reason (and I've tried).
I'm not surprised it led to hate. Their announcement was horribly handled for several reasons. The title image featured the game's characters flossing. This can be interpreted as the developers...
The title image featured the game's characters flossing.
This can be interpreted as the developers taunting their fanbase, especially if you look at the overall level of snark in their blog post overall.
Regarding the below quote...
Epic paying for PC exclusives has become the latest thing Gamers™ have gotten angry about, which I’ll talk more about a bit further down.
Was it really necessary to capitalise the word 'Gamers' and add a trademark symbol? Is this the devs trying to discredit Epic's haters by snarkily branding them fake or elitist or something like that? I don't get what they were trying to do there.
Also another problem with one of their quotes "justifying" the offer.
Just imagine if other companies got it in their head to offer funding in exchange for exclusives. What’d be next? Game consoles paying for games to be exclusive on their consoles? Netflix paying for exclusive shows? Newspapers paying for exclusive articles? It’d be some sort of late capitalist dystopia.
First of all, the Ooblets devs don't have a clue how console exclusivity works in most cases. It's less of a problem on consoles because most exclusives are first-party IPs developed and/or published by the actual console manufacturer. For example: Mario, Zelda, Halo.
Secondly, Netflix is a very bad example because platform exclusivity is probably going to kill the online streaming market by making people subscribe to loads of services to catch up on shows. If anything, the sheer amount of networks pulling their stuff from Netflix and Amazon Prime then creating their own competitor in an already saturated market is going to drive people back to piracy.
Their response towards Core Issue #1 - “EGS doesn’t have as many features as other stores”
Steam was a heaping pile of donkey shit back in 2004 because digital distribution wasn't really a thing back then. Most bought their games from brick and mortar stores. Steam never really came into its own until several years later when the store was revamped and when more publishers came on board.
EGS on the other hand came out in 2018 when every other store already has achievements, social features, customer service, reviews, etc. EGS doesn't even have a shopping cart. In 2019. That's a basic fucking feature for any online storefront.
Their response towards Core Issue #2: “It’s anti-consumer to have exclusives” misses the point entirely.
It just comes across as them bitching about piracy and downplaying the argument because "there are much bigger issues to be mad about."
Besides, there are far more reasons why Epic are a shitty company, and it's interesting that the Ooblets devs only cherry-picked two of them:
The Epic Games Store is not GDPR compliant. This is a legal requirement to operate in EU countries and it says a lot about how much they care about user data. For a company that is owned by Tencent, this is particularly concerning.
You've somehow managed to perfectly encapsulate my thoughts on the matter in your post, but a slight correction here: Epic isn't owned by Tencent, but they are a major stakeholder at 48,4%. So...
You've somehow managed to perfectly encapsulate my thoughts on the matter in your post, but a slight correction here: Epic isn't owned by Tencent, but they are a major stakeholder at 48,4%. So there's definitely a chance they're influencing the whole "Epic not caring about data scheme." EGS not complying with the GDPR is enough for me to never even consider the store. It's barebones features are just icing on the cake.
It's legitimate concerns like these that the Ooblets devs have completely ignored in their post. They've basically gone out of their way and addressed all the angry people on the internet directly with their comments and at least alienated everyone else with the patronizing tone.
The things people get so angry about is bewildering.. and not just angry, absolutely hateful to an extreme. Is it because it is so easy to attack via various social media channels that people do...
The things people get so angry about is bewildering.. and not just angry, absolutely hateful to an extreme.
Is it because it is so easy to attack via various social media channels that people do this? I'm talking about the death threats, the rape threats, the torrent of abuse that these guys and many others are subjected to. I'm not saying that these game developers have been on the receiving end of rape/death threats but am talking in a more general basis.
Are these, I think it's probably fair to say, kids so full of anger that they're sincere in their threats and abuse or is it more nonchalent than that?
"Ah, these guys pissed me off, so I'm going to DM them a death threat"
I can't imagine what it takes to make such threats other than immaturity.
They had been funding their game via patreon, and there are now some long-time patrons who will not be able to play the game. Ben and Rebecca responded pretty poorly to that, and it blew up in the...
They had been funding their game via patreon, and there are now some long-time patrons who will not be able to play the game. Ben and Rebecca responded pretty poorly to that, and it blew up in the gaming community. I could care less about this game, and it seems like that's the case for many here just scoffing at the outraged gamers. But I think the point is that the EGS doesn't support a lot of regions, and there are people who have been supporting this game for a long time who feel like they were sold out. Context: https://old.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/cl3yoc/the_developers_behind_ooblets_are_a_textbook/
Yes, and the issue at hand is that the conversation is "blame the devs for provoking the gamers." I know the cynical takeaway is that they had it coming, but should we as a community not throw a...
Yes, and the issue at hand is that the conversation is "blame the devs for provoking the gamers." I know the cynical takeaway is that they had it coming, but should we as a community not throw a temper tantrum when provoked and try and diffuse these sorts of things before they happen, or do too many people want to rage?
While there's definitely a limit (death threats over games are beyond the pale) - calm discussion gets you nowhere against corporate greed. Community outrage at least sometimes gets results. Fear...
While there's definitely a limit (death threats over games are beyond the pale) - calm discussion gets you nowhere against corporate greed. Community outrage at least sometimes gets results. Fear of community outrage gets even more results.
Because their blog post was not intended to be a press release to introduce themselves to the world. They thought they were going to put out a post to everyone interested in the game in the cutesy...
Because their blog post was not intended to be a press release to introduce themselves to the world. They thought they were going to put out a post to everyone interested in the game in the cutesy style they were doing blog posts in earlier, and didn't expect it to explode into the hot blooded drama that it became. Are there ways they could have made this better for themselves, probably. The question I'm interested in is if the rage of the internet is now a justified albatross around their necks.
Edit: And should it be our problem if our community gets out of hand? I know we can't unconditionally apologize for everyone flinging poop, but should we do something between that, and nope out of the conversation when things get heated?
Re: Patreon, One of the devs made a post on Medium that was linked downthread where he goes into the situation in depth and says "We absolutely appreciate the support of fans and especially all...
Re: Patreon, One of the devs made a post on Medium that was linked downthread where he goes into the situation in depth and says "We absolutely appreciate the support of fans and especially all our Patreon supporters, who we’ve been in communication with throughout all of this. I’ve never made any statements that were unappreciative of them at all, and mischaracterizations of my messages are not very convincing." I really don't trust the mob to prove otherwise, nor do I have have the time to detective around for unsatisfied Patrons, so I'm willing to trust the dev.
As far as responsibility to the community, you don't have to leap to their defense, but they still have to bunker down and work on the game and that means putting time in on the soich to answer questions and field responses. They do not have the ability to walk away from this like you do, so I think they deserve that understanding, or at least more than "they got what was coming." But we might have to agree to disagree.
I think there's a very important thing to remember here: antagonists and bullies will seek to give their behavior justifications so that they can escape criticism for their harmful actions. They...
I think there's a very important thing to remember here: antagonists and bullies will seek to give their behavior justifications so that they can escape criticism for their harmful actions. They thrive under plausible deniability and under contextualization that suggests their behaviors are reactive. By framing the situation to their advantage, they will successfully paint their target as an instigator and their corresponding bullying as inevitable, or even as having an element of righteousness or justice to it.
Hate, threats, and harassment are not inevitable and are not valid responses. They are calculated, chosen actions by individuals in control of their own behavior. They are not righteous or just. They are not tools for social change. They are antagonistic social weapons. The people engaging in these types of discourse benefit from everyone else forgetting this, or turning their attention elsewhere.
The post you linked is a good example of this misdirection. It's also tone deaf and one-sided, in that it is focusing entirely on the conduct of devs rather than all parties involved. I won't even argue that the devs are blameless, as I do think their post was patronizing, but what I will argue is that absent from this post and much of the online discussion is any sort of redress for negative behavior on the part of people responding to the devs. The devs' behavior is under the microscope, yet everyone else gets a pass and the assumption of goodwill?
It's transparently hypocritical, and not at all an accident. By making the conversation about the devs' actions and continuing to scrutinize them, we're letting harm far greater in scope and number go unchecked. We tell ourselves that the devs aggroed gamers so of course they're going to experience hate, rather than realizing the problem is that gamers can be aggroed like that in the first place.
I wont defend death threats either. At the time that I posted this comment, the post and comments all felt very much like “wow these poor defenseless indie devs are getting death threats from evil...
I wont defend death threats either. At the time that I posted this comment, the post and comments all felt very much like “wow these poor defenseless indie devs are getting death threats from evil gamers” and I just wanted to add context to the discussion.
I think, unemotionally and with no attachment to this game at all, that the devs fucked over their core fans - the people that had given them the money to bring their game this far. I don’t have sympathy that public opinion has turned on them up to the point of their physical safety, at which point the mod has clearly gone too far.
I should have clarified that I was aimed more at the larger conversation than at you specifically. I think your response of unemotional attachment is a healthy one. I'm in the same boat. The...
I should have clarified that I was aimed more at the larger conversation than at you specifically. I think your response of unemotional attachment is a healthy one. I'm in the same boat.
The reason I made my post is that I wanted to point out to everyone at large that, whenever these hate storms happen, people will find a narrative of legitimate grievance (such as people who feel justifiably screwed over by these devs) and use that as a pretense for or excusal of hostile behavior. They then rely on the empathy of reasonable middle-ground people, in conversations like these across the internet, to spread those talking points because it shifts responsibility away from the harassers. If we look at this and only say, "yeah, the devs were assholes" then the aggressors have already won because they've successfully kept themselves out of the conversation.
It's not that there aren't people who feel legitimately screwed over, it's that their stories will get taken to lend validity to the much, MUCH larger dumpster fire reveling in wanton destruction. As long as the complainants can be seen as coming from a place of truth rather than harm, they will escape harsh scrutiny. The fact that people fabricated evidence against the devs demonstrates this perfectly. People doctored screenshots as a way of establishing a post hoc rationale for their responses and engendering public sympathy for their viewpoints. If they were unconcerned about the public perception of their role, they wouldn't bother, but it's clear that they very much need the cover that a "valid" storyline can give them. They want us to think this is about Ooblets specifically when it's really about hate in general.
Being entitled to things as a consumer, ability to hide behind an alias, complete lack of respect or understanding for developers. There's numerous reasons, and they all fit with being a shitty...
I can't imagine what it takes to make such threats other than immaturity.
Being entitled to things as a consumer, ability to hide behind an alias, complete lack of respect or understanding for developers.
There's numerous reasons, and they all fit with being a shitty person.
Everyone who has ever worked a service jobs comes out of it with their regard for humanity being much lower. This is because the shittiest people take the opportunity to hassle them and all the...
Is it because it is so easy to attack via various social media channels that people do this?
Everyone who has ever worked a service jobs comes out of it with their regard for humanity being much lower. This is because the shittiest people take the opportunity to hassle them and all the normal interactions fade into the background and all your mental energy is occupied by dealing with shitty people.
Twitter, and really everything that optimizes for engagement, is designed to filter out everyone BUT the shitty people. It's literally worse than working in customer service which is soul-sucking to start with.
I don't think it's any one factor. The internet has kind of turned into a perfect storm for this type of behavior. Anonymity or semi-anonymity mitigates the consequences for this type of action....
I don't think it's any one factor. The internet has kind of turned into a perfect storm for this type of behavior. Anonymity or semi-anonymity mitigates the consequences for this type of action. Even if the people are punished, at most it will be via losing whatever account they sent the threat from which isn't that big of a deal. It's also extremely easy to send a threat, it probably takes no more than two or three minutes. Then there's tons of social factors like: being in a community of similarly minded people which only encourages the behavior (I can't count the number of times I've seen gamers treat exclusivity deals or similar occurrences like an actual crime). If everyone in your community is reacting in a particular way to something, you will learn to as well. I think there's probably a sense of entitlement among these people as well that comes from a variety of places and leads to them believing they are owed a certain outcome.
We've kind of left the Internet get to a state over the last 20ish years where this type of thing isn't that unheard of. I'm not sure there's a single cause in those 20 years you can point to as the root reason, but rather a long train of tiny norms being accepted and propagated that leads to this.
The developers published an article about this today on Medium. As an aside/suggestion, I think it might be interesting to see if we can "hook" submissions together so someone following a news...
As an aside/suggestion, I think it might be interesting to see if we can "hook" submissions together so someone following a news story can get linked to responses, other articles, or updates on an issue. I realize I'm posting this as a comment and not another submission but I didn't want to flood ~games with content on just one issue.
I'm glad they're not just shrinking away from this and putting out an apology, which is what a lot of people and companies would have done to just try to get it to stop. It's awful to deal with,...
I'm glad they're not just shrinking away from this and putting out an apology, which is what a lot of people and companies would have done to just try to get it to stop. It's awful to deal with, but I think it's important that it gets called out and explained like this. Unfortunately, I don't think much will change unless some consequences for the abusers start showing up and the platforms that enable the harassment start taking some action to prevent it.
(Also yes, I like the idea of being able to connect a bunch of different links/topics together into some kind of "story". I've thought about it a little in the past but haven't tried to work out the actual mechanics of how it could work)
I really like that idea. Having "Topic Referenced By: ..." and "Topic References: ..." in the sidebar parsed from the comments would go a long way for automating useful relationships without an...
I really like that idea. Having "Topic Referenced By: ..." and "Topic References: ..." in the sidebar parsed from the comments would go a long way for automating useful relationships without an extra burden on users. I would go a step farther and allow specification of (optional?) relationship types like "update", "alt source", "fact-check", "response", etc. from a pre-configured set. Aside from making the sidebar lists clearer, they can be used to tweak the main UI under different conditions (e.g. highlight and link any "update" topic directly under the original topic's title, and on the updated topic have a prominent "original" link)
I faced an online hate mob not too long ago, over a post I removed in r/FloridaMan because it had a shitty title. I made the decision to remove it on a Thursday night. The poster then made another...
I faced an online hate mob not too long ago, over a post I removed in r/FloridaMan because it had a shitty title. I made the decision to remove it on a Thursday night. The poster then made another post complaining about it, and instead of deleting it I basically said tough shit, leave if you don't like it. The entitled greasy masses didn't like that one bit. How dare a moderator stand firm for some basic standards? I went to bed. Friday morning, my inbox was just full of the most ridiculous, shitty messages. (E: having seen the messages that the developer here got, they're basically the same) At first I was actually kind of mad. I look at modding that subreddit as basically just a really easy hobby, and it's fairly low maintenance 99% of the time. I made a really routine removal, and now all of a sudden there's this internet lynch mob?
I started arguing with them. At first, I was trying to explain why the post was shitty and why it was removed. That didn't go over well. Then I basically just started giving it right back to them. I told them they were stupid, they were losers, and made sure to constantly remind them they were seeking out and harassing a stranger over another stranger's internet points. And you know what? Most of them stopped replying after a round or two because (I assume) they had a moment of self reflection.
What was interesting to me was that, outside of Reddit, I had an awesome day and weekend. Killed it at work, got off early, hung out with a cutie at her parents' lake house, it was great. I honestly think that's the best way to deal with these situations, is just unplug for a bit because none of it really matters anyway. I probably did waste a couple hours of time typing at these people. I 'lost' a bunch of karma, which I made up one day later with a four word post that got 3.2K karma. r/FloridaMan gained a few thousand subscribers that weekend. The traffic stats don't even show a fluctuation when it happened. Basically, none of it mattered at all.
Despite the fact that I really disliked the original blog post, I can still sympathize with this. Nobody deserves to have this much mindless hate thrown at them. This all said, I do want to note...
Despite the fact that I really disliked the original blog post, I can still sympathize with this. Nobody deserves to have this much mindless hate thrown at them. This all said, I do want to note that I'm not certain this hate is as widespread as it seems. I mentioned it in a different comment, but I think it's easy to miss the forest for the trees here — I definitely have seen some people being very venomous about this, but I've also been seeing a lot of folks with level-headed opinions.
Second to that, I do want to comment that this quote from their Medium post feels off to me:
Whenever I’ve mentioned that we, as random people happening to be making a game, don’t owe these other random people anything, they become absolutely enraged.
They've been mentioning things along this line (i.e. regarding entitlement) since their first post, and I really think it's missing the point of why many people are angry here. They say, repeatedly, that they "don't owe" people things, but generally speaking I'd say everyone should owe strangers basic respect when they don't know them. If you don't know someone's an asshole, I don't think you should treat them like they are. People got mad largely because – whether the perception was right or not – they perceived they were being insulted.
Obviously, plenty of the people that read the post turned out to be massive douchebags, but part of the reason I think this all happened was because their original post came off disrespectful, and the rest likely escalated from all the angry people building a strawman of the developer to get angrier at — something angry people are wont to do.
I don't necessarily fault them for the tone wholesale. I can't expect them to neatly tie everything up comfortably for everyone, but I do feel they could've done a lot better. I respect them trying to be human, but just because a response frequently comes from a corporation doesn't make it bad; sometimes the reason it's used at all is just because it was genuinely a good idea.
Posted this in the thread for the general announcement, probably better serviced here. This reminds me of that one take on the Last Jedi by Film Crit Hulk (which I'm surprised they've kept the...
Posted this in the thread for the general announcement, probably better serviced here.
This reminds me of that one take on the Last Jedi by Film Crit Hulk (which I'm surprised they've kept the pseudonym around this long.)
He finally just yelled, “I felt like the film was making fun of me!”
And there it was. All these things that I’ve been talking about. The feeling of “being talked down to” by Holdo. The not wanting Finn to be silly. The ignoring of character arcs, the silly tone, the faux logic arguments, it all adds up into the vicarious way people place themselves into a movie. So they felt attacked by this movie…but it’s not attacking them, it’s attacking qualities of people. It’s attacking toxic masculinity. It’s attacking toxic fandom. It’s attacking all the worst parts of ourselves and asking us to do better.
But to everyone who wants the power fantasy, they can only shout in response, “this doesn’t make me feel the way I want to feel!”
Yes, Epic Exclusives show a naked capitalistic grab for power and marketplace dominance, but that's only because it mirrors and is made of gaming. Steam is a store, not a protocol, not an omnibus, and not a religion that can be blasphemed, and if you cannot stand it existing and withholding it's lovelies from you, wait the g-d year, and leave the devs out of it, because that's a you problem.
I'm just going to blindly assume this shit started on reddit because it almost always does. For as quick as reddit is to mock people for falling for the Streishand Effect, that's exactly what...
I'm just going to blindly assume this shit started on reddit because it almost always does. For as quick as reddit is to mock people for falling for the Streishand Effect, that's exactly what they're doing here. Yes, absolutely complain and call out dev bullshit in a civilized manner. But when you take it to this level, threaten them, make it the only fucking thing that matters in your small life for a few days, etc. you're giving the game and its devs way more exposure and sales than you ever would have otherwise.
I'd literally never even heard of this game before and I adore Pokemon, Animal Crossing, and Stardew Valley. Looking at their website I can't think of a more perfect video game for myself than this one and I'd never heard of it until a bunch of angry pricks started hollering about it like cavemen. So thanks, gamer mob, can't wait to buy this on the Epic store.
Does anyone else think it's a bit odd for fans of a game with those kinds of graphics and gameplay be generating this level of vitriol and hate? Are we sure that it's actually fans of this...
Does anyone else think it's a bit odd for fans of a game with those kinds of graphics and gameplay be generating this level of vitriol and hate?
Are we sure that it's actually fans of this particular game behind it and not the Epic Hate Army ready to jump on any new exclusivity announcement no matter what game it is?
It's important not to extrapolate what a few assholes are doing to be representative of the majority. I've been following this topic for a bit, and the most common sentiment I've yet found generally went "I get why you took Epic's money, that just makes sense — but why did you act like such an asshole about it in the blog post?" The only place I've seen much of any jackasses is on Twitter, which... well, that's not exactly surprising.
It's very easy to forget the reasonable people when there's monkeys in the room flinging shit for attention.
I apologize in advance if I'm misinterpreting, but it looks to me like you've taken my post as an assertion that we should stop worrying about this. That's absolutely not the case. I agree that what these people have done is reprehensible and should not be forgotten whatsoever. I also agree this has almost certainly been very hard on a small group of people who without a doubt did not deserve it, and that if they think the internet is a cesspool of the absolute worst among society, I absolutely don't blame them, as people are being clearly and insanely vile to them.
Rather, when I say it's important to remember the proportions, what I'm concerned about here is that the reasonable people will be forgotten — or worse, lumped in with the crazies. Problems like this tend to cause the original event to be forgotten, and when the pieces of shit crawl out to spit acid, newcomers to the story may end up assuming that pieces of shit were all that was there from the start. Worst case scenario, this can lead to an entire category of opinion being completely discarded via the assumption that only loudmouthed cretins supported it.
I don't intend to ever underestimate the reach of those who seek to spread nothing but hate, and I'd never suggest ignoring them. I just want it to be remembered that before they arrived, those who disagreed (calmly and rationally) with Glumberland's initial post had a point.
I agree, but it's important to remember that our view of the situation is limited. We see mostly reasonable comments because we're operating on platforms with systems and moderators and community norms that help separate the wheat from the absolute shit. What we don't see are the removed messages from those platforms, as well as the many messages the devs receive through private communications. The worst elements of what's going on are invisible to us, and that downplays the magnitude of their presence.
This happens a lot of times on controversial reddit posts. I'm European, so by the time I arrive to read a post, most comments are a 5+ hours old, the dust has settled on the ranking and everything's fine and dandy. Which makes it really weird when the top comment is claiming something akin to "Wow, these comments are such a shitshow" while the thread seems completely fine for the most top comments.
My experience is that reddit has far less moderation during European hours. As a result there can be rule-breaking posts up for hours at a time. It's a lot harder to find EU mods for whatever reason (and I've tried).
This is a very good point that I hadn't considered. Thank you for bringing it up!
I'm not surprised it led to hate. Their announcement was horribly handled for several reasons.
The title image featured the game's characters flossing.
This can be interpreted as the developers taunting their fanbase, especially if you look at the overall level of snark in their blog post overall.
Regarding the below quote...
Was it really necessary to capitalise the word 'Gamers' and add a trademark symbol? Is this the devs trying to discredit Epic's haters by snarkily branding them fake or elitist or something like that? I don't get what they were trying to do there.
Also another problem with one of their quotes "justifying" the offer.
First of all, the Ooblets devs don't have a clue how console exclusivity works in most cases. It's less of a problem on consoles because most exclusives are first-party IPs developed and/or published by the actual console manufacturer. For example: Mario, Zelda, Halo.
Secondly, Netflix is a very bad example because platform exclusivity is probably going to kill the online streaming market by making people subscribe to loads of services to catch up on shows. If anything, the sheer amount of networks pulling their stuff from Netflix and Amazon Prime then creating their own competitor in an already saturated market is going to drive people back to piracy.
Their response towards Core Issue #1 - “EGS doesn’t have as many features as other stores”
Steam was a heaping pile of donkey shit back in 2004 because digital distribution wasn't really a thing back then. Most bought their games from brick and mortar stores. Steam never really came into its own until several years later when the store was revamped and when more publishers came on board.
EGS on the other hand came out in 2018 when every other store already has achievements, social features, customer service, reviews, etc. EGS doesn't even have a shopping cart. In 2019. That's a basic fucking feature for any online storefront.
Their response towards Core Issue #2: “It’s anti-consumer to have exclusives” misses the point entirely.
It just comes across as them bitching about piracy and downplaying the argument because "there are much bigger issues to be mad about."
Besides, there are far more reasons why Epic are a shitty company, and it's interesting that the Ooblets devs only cherry-picked two of them:
Targeting crowdfunded projects or games that are mere weeks away from launch is highly unethical. They clearly haven't learned from Metro: Exodus or Shenmue 3. Also, FYI, Ooblets is being funded via Patreon, so the backers who already pumped money into the project are now being forced into the Epic ecosystem unwillingly. I'm actually surprised that backers haven't gone full chargeback bois on the Ooblets devs in outrage at being forced to use EGS and made them regret the deal they signed.
The Epic Games Store is not GDPR compliant. This is a legal requirement to operate in EU countries and it says a lot about how much they care about user data. For a company that is owned by Tencent, this is particularly concerning.
On the subject of bad data protection and security practices, Epic have been caught red-handed snooping on Steam user data, even to the point where Valve made an official statement condemning their actions.
They don't consult with publishers prior to putting their games on sale at discounted rates.
The lack of shopping cart means that you can have your account locked for fraudulent activity just for buying too many games.
Epic reject developers because they do not want to sign an exclusivity deal. So fucking much for trying to promote competition.
That being said, what people have sent to the developers is fucking disgusting and the cavalcade of hate comments they've been receiving reeks of degeneracy and toxicity. Here is an article showcasing some of the crass hate comments they've received on Discord, Reddit and Twitter (MAJOR NSFW WARNING)
You've somehow managed to perfectly encapsulate my thoughts on the matter in your post, but a slight correction here: Epic isn't owned by Tencent, but they are a major stakeholder at 48,4%. So there's definitely a chance they're influencing the whole "Epic not caring about data scheme." EGS not complying with the GDPR is enough for me to never even consider the store. It's barebones features are just icing on the cake.
It's legitimate concerns like these that the Ooblets devs have completely ignored in their post. They've basically gone out of their way and addressed all the angry people on the internet directly with their comments and at least alienated everyone else with the patronizing tone.
The things people get so angry about is bewildering.. and not just angry, absolutely hateful to an extreme.
Is it because it is so easy to attack via various social media channels that people do this? I'm talking about the death threats, the rape threats, the torrent of abuse that these guys and many others are subjected to. I'm not saying that these game developers have been on the receiving end of rape/death threats but am talking in a more general basis.
Are these, I think it's probably fair to say, kids so full of anger that they're sincere in their threats and abuse or is it more nonchalent than that?
"Ah, these guys pissed me off, so I'm going to DM them a death threat"
I can't imagine what it takes to make such threats other than immaturity.
They had been funding their game via patreon, and there are now some long-time patrons who will not be able to play the game. Ben and Rebecca responded pretty poorly to that, and it blew up in the gaming community. I could care less about this game, and it seems like that's the case for many here just scoffing at the outraged gamers. But I think the point is that the EGS doesn't support a lot of regions, and there are people who have been supporting this game for a long time who feel like they were sold out. Context: https://old.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/cl3yoc/the_developers_behind_ooblets_are_a_textbook/
Yes, and the issue at hand is that the conversation is "blame the devs for provoking the gamers." I know the cynical takeaway is that they had it coming, but should we as a community not throw a temper tantrum when provoked and try and diffuse these sorts of things before they happen, or do too many people want to rage?
While there's definitely a limit (death threats over games are beyond the pale) - calm discussion gets you nowhere against corporate greed. Community outrage at least sometimes gets results. Fear of community outrage gets even more results.
Because their blog post was not intended to be a press release to introduce themselves to the world. They thought they were going to put out a post to everyone interested in the game in the cutesy style they were doing blog posts in earlier, and didn't expect it to explode into the hot blooded drama that it became. Are there ways they could have made this better for themselves, probably. The question I'm interested in is if the rage of the internet is now a justified albatross around their necks.
Edit: And should it be our problem if our community gets out of hand? I know we can't unconditionally apologize for everyone flinging poop, but should we do something between that, and nope out of the conversation when things get heated?
Re: Patreon, One of the devs made a post on Medium that was linked downthread where he goes into the situation in depth and says "We absolutely appreciate the support of fans and especially all our Patreon supporters, who we’ve been in communication with throughout all of this. I’ve never made any statements that were unappreciative of them at all, and mischaracterizations of my messages are not very convincing." I really don't trust the mob to prove otherwise, nor do I have have the time to detective around for unsatisfied Patrons, so I'm willing to trust the dev.
As far as responsibility to the community, you don't have to leap to their defense, but they still have to bunker down and work on the game and that means putting time in on the soich to answer questions and field responses. They do not have the ability to walk away from this like you do, so I think they deserve that understanding, or at least more than "they got what was coming." But we might have to agree to disagree.
I think there's a very important thing to remember here: antagonists and bullies will seek to give their behavior justifications so that they can escape criticism for their harmful actions. They thrive under plausible deniability and under contextualization that suggests their behaviors are reactive. By framing the situation to their advantage, they will successfully paint their target as an instigator and their corresponding bullying as inevitable, or even as having an element of righteousness or justice to it.
Hate, threats, and harassment are not inevitable and are not valid responses. They are calculated, chosen actions by individuals in control of their own behavior. They are not righteous or just. They are not tools for social change. They are antagonistic social weapons. The people engaging in these types of discourse benefit from everyone else forgetting this, or turning their attention elsewhere.
The post you linked is a good example of this misdirection. It's also tone deaf and one-sided, in that it is focusing entirely on the conduct of devs rather than all parties involved. I won't even argue that the devs are blameless, as I do think their post was patronizing, but what I will argue is that absent from this post and much of the online discussion is any sort of redress for negative behavior on the part of people responding to the devs. The devs' behavior is under the microscope, yet everyone else gets a pass and the assumption of goodwill?
It's transparently hypocritical, and not at all an accident. By making the conversation about the devs' actions and continuing to scrutinize them, we're letting harm far greater in scope and number go unchecked. We tell ourselves that the devs aggroed gamers so of course they're going to experience hate, rather than realizing the problem is that gamers can be aggroed like that in the first place.
I wont defend death threats either. At the time that I posted this comment, the post and comments all felt very much like “wow these poor defenseless indie devs are getting death threats from evil gamers” and I just wanted to add context to the discussion.
I think, unemotionally and with no attachment to this game at all, that the devs fucked over their core fans - the people that had given them the money to bring their game this far. I don’t have sympathy that public opinion has turned on them up to the point of their physical safety, at which point the mod has clearly gone too far.
I should have clarified that I was aimed more at the larger conversation than at you specifically. I think your response of unemotional attachment is a healthy one. I'm in the same boat.
The reason I made my post is that I wanted to point out to everyone at large that, whenever these hate storms happen, people will find a narrative of legitimate grievance (such as people who feel justifiably screwed over by these devs) and use that as a pretense for or excusal of hostile behavior. They then rely on the empathy of reasonable middle-ground people, in conversations like these across the internet, to spread those talking points because it shifts responsibility away from the harassers. If we look at this and only say, "yeah, the devs were assholes" then the aggressors have already won because they've successfully kept themselves out of the conversation.
It's not that there aren't people who feel legitimately screwed over, it's that their stories will get taken to lend validity to the much, MUCH larger dumpster fire reveling in wanton destruction. As long as the complainants can be seen as coming from a place of truth rather than harm, they will escape harsh scrutiny. The fact that people fabricated evidence against the devs demonstrates this perfectly. People doctored screenshots as a way of establishing a post hoc rationale for their responses and engendering public sympathy for their viewpoints. If they were unconcerned about the public perception of their role, they wouldn't bother, but it's clear that they very much need the cover that a "valid" storyline can give them. They want us to think this is about Ooblets specifically when it's really about hate in general.
Reading the comments in that link and reading the developer's blog post makes me think everyone is the arsehole here.
Anonymity is a strong factor that fuels this kind of action. The capital G gamer crowd is honestly one of the most entitled bunch out there.
Being entitled to things as a consumer, ability to hide behind an alias, complete lack of respect or understanding for developers.
There's numerous reasons, and they all fit with being a shitty person.
Everyone who has ever worked a service jobs comes out of it with their regard for humanity being much lower. This is because the shittiest people take the opportunity to hassle them and all the normal interactions fade into the background and all your mental energy is occupied by dealing with shitty people.
Twitter, and really everything that optimizes for engagement, is designed to filter out everyone BUT the shitty people. It's literally worse than working in customer service which is soul-sucking to start with.
I don't think it's any one factor. The internet has kind of turned into a perfect storm for this type of behavior. Anonymity or semi-anonymity mitigates the consequences for this type of action. Even if the people are punished, at most it will be via losing whatever account they sent the threat from which isn't that big of a deal. It's also extremely easy to send a threat, it probably takes no more than two or three minutes. Then there's tons of social factors like: being in a community of similarly minded people which only encourages the behavior (I can't count the number of times I've seen gamers treat exclusivity deals or similar occurrences like an actual crime). If everyone in your community is reacting in a particular way to something, you will learn to as well. I think there's probably a sense of entitlement among these people as well that comes from a variety of places and leads to them believing they are owed a certain outcome.
We've kind of left the Internet get to a state over the last 20ish years where this type of thing isn't that unheard of. I'm not sure there's a single cause in those 20 years you can point to as the root reason, but rather a long train of tiny norms being accepted and propagated that leads to this.
The developers published an article about this today on Medium.
As an aside/suggestion, I think it might be interesting to see if we can "hook" submissions together so someone following a news story can get linked to responses, other articles, or updates on an issue. I realize I'm posting this as a comment and not another submission but I didn't want to flood ~games with content on just one issue.
I'm glad they're not just shrinking away from this and putting out an apology, which is what a lot of people and companies would have done to just try to get it to stop. It's awful to deal with, but I think it's important that it gets called out and explained like this. Unfortunately, I don't think much will change unless some consequences for the abusers start showing up and the platforms that enable the harassment start taking some action to prevent it.
(Also yes, I like the idea of being able to connect a bunch of different links/topics together into some kind of "story". I've thought about it a little in the past but haven't tried to work out the actual mechanics of how it could work)
Github could be used as inspiration. Typing a thread ID (or a full link) could generate a references list in the sidebar.
I really like that idea. Having "Topic Referenced By: ..." and "Topic References: ..." in the sidebar parsed from the comments would go a long way for automating useful relationships without an extra burden on users. I would go a step farther and allow specification of (optional?) relationship types like "update", "alt source", "fact-check", "response", etc. from a pre-configured set. Aside from making the sidebar lists clearer, they can be used to tweak the main UI under different conditions (e.g. highlight and link any "update" topic directly under the original topic's title, and on the updated topic have a prominent "original" link)
Thanks. I was about to link this article. Goddamnit those responses from gamers are pathetic to the core.
I faced an online hate mob not too long ago, over a post I removed in r/FloridaMan because it had a shitty title. I made the decision to remove it on a Thursday night. The poster then made another post complaining about it, and instead of deleting it I basically said tough shit, leave if you don't like it. The entitled greasy masses didn't like that one bit. How dare a moderator stand firm for some basic standards? I went to bed. Friday morning, my inbox was just full of the most ridiculous, shitty messages. (E: having seen the messages that the developer here got, they're basically the same) At first I was actually kind of mad. I look at modding that subreddit as basically just a really easy hobby, and it's fairly low maintenance 99% of the time. I made a really routine removal, and now all of a sudden there's this internet lynch mob?
I started arguing with them. At first, I was trying to explain why the post was shitty and why it was removed. That didn't go over well. Then I basically just started giving it right back to them. I told them they were stupid, they were losers, and made sure to constantly remind them they were seeking out and harassing a stranger over another stranger's internet points. And you know what? Most of them stopped replying after a round or two because (I assume) they had a moment of self reflection.
What was interesting to me was that, outside of Reddit, I had an awesome day and weekend. Killed it at work, got off early, hung out with a cutie at her parents' lake house, it was great. I honestly think that's the best way to deal with these situations, is just unplug for a bit because none of it really matters anyway. I probably did waste a couple hours of time typing at these people. I 'lost' a bunch of karma, which I made up one day later with a four word post that got 3.2K karma. r/FloridaMan gained a few thousand subscribers that weekend. The traffic stats don't even show a fluctuation when it happened. Basically, none of it mattered at all.
Despite the fact that I really disliked the original blog post, I can still sympathize with this. Nobody deserves to have this much mindless hate thrown at them. This all said, I do want to note that I'm not certain this hate is as widespread as it seems. I mentioned it in a different comment, but I think it's easy to miss the forest for the trees here — I definitely have seen some people being very venomous about this, but I've also been seeing a lot of folks with level-headed opinions.
Second to that, I do want to comment that this quote from their Medium post feels off to me:
They've been mentioning things along this line (i.e. regarding entitlement) since their first post, and I really think it's missing the point of why many people are angry here. They say, repeatedly, that they "don't owe" people things, but generally speaking I'd say everyone should owe strangers basic respect when they don't know them. If you don't know someone's an asshole, I don't think you should treat them like they are. People got mad largely because – whether the perception was right or not – they perceived they were being insulted.
Obviously, plenty of the people that read the post turned out to be massive douchebags, but part of the reason I think this all happened was because their original post came off disrespectful, and the rest likely escalated from all the angry people building a strawman of the developer to get angrier at — something angry people are wont to do.
I don't necessarily fault them for the tone wholesale. I can't expect them to neatly tie everything up comfortably for everyone, but I do feel they could've done a lot better. I respect them trying to be human, but just because a response frequently comes from a corporation doesn't make it bad; sometimes the reason it's used at all is just because it was genuinely a good idea.
Posted this in the thread for the general announcement, probably better serviced here.
This reminds me of that one take on the Last Jedi by Film Crit Hulk (which I'm surprised they've kept the pseudonym around this long.)
https://observer.com/2018/07/film-crit-hulk-the-beautiful-ugly-and-possessive-hearts-of-star-wars/
Choice part here --
Yes, Epic Exclusives show a naked capitalistic grab for power and marketplace dominance, but that's only because it mirrors and is made of gaming. Steam is a store, not a protocol, not an omnibus, and not a religion that can be blasphemed, and if you cannot stand it existing and withholding it's lovelies from you, wait the g-d year, and leave the devs out of it, because that's a you problem.
I'd never read that observer article before, and I just read the whole thing. Fantastic read, thanks for sharing.
I'm just going to blindly assume this shit started on reddit because it almost always does. For as quick as reddit is to mock people for falling for the Streishand Effect, that's exactly what they're doing here. Yes, absolutely complain and call out dev bullshit in a civilized manner. But when you take it to this level, threaten them, make it the only fucking thing that matters in your small life for a few days, etc. you're giving the game and its devs way more exposure and sales than you ever would have otherwise.
I'd literally never even heard of this game before and I adore Pokemon, Animal Crossing, and Stardew Valley. Looking at their website I can't think of a more perfect video game for myself than this one and I'd never heard of it until a bunch of angry pricks started hollering about it like cavemen. So thanks, gamer mob, can't wait to buy this on the Epic store.
Does anyone else think it's a bit odd for fans of a game with those kinds of graphics and gameplay be generating this level of vitriol and hate?
Are we sure that it's actually fans of this particular game behind it and not the Epic Hate Army ready to jump on any new exclusivity announcement no matter what game it is?
Oh I don't think there's any question. It's definitely the latter.
This reminds me of a quote from Cracked of all places, something along the lines of,