I’ve noticed an unpleasant trend:
As far as I can tell, as time goes, with each release there’s increased hostility from gaming community. Basically, no matter what is released, somebody will make a post “this game is a warcrame”, and people will argue that to the death for hundreds of pages.
Basically I would like to know if this is a global trend, an actual trend, or only concerns steam community.
I also recall that unpleasant story where a game developer was receiving death threats over decision to go epic store exclusive. (That involved Ooblets)
I agree, but I think its just the internet in general not just gaming. In general everything is getting more ****** up as time goes on and I personally blame social media (and I would include reddit say as social media) for twisting up the internet and a lot of its users into the monstrosity we have now.
The hate and insanity online is just so much higher than it ever has been and it seems to get worse.
(A portion of) Gamers have always been really vile towards developers online, but its the sheer scale of it now that is really worrying (mass co-ordinated often) - as well as the fact that its not really a small portion anymore, but the general populace feels emboldeded and entitled now and the behaviour and animosity with each major release shows. People are genuinly co-ordinating in their attempts to troll, or in worse cases abuse and harm people and its really getting out of hand.
But I ask a question back, what can actually be done about it? I keep thinking about this and I just cant come up with any thing that can realistically be done / make a difference to the situation
P.S I assume this is in relation to the severe death threats the cyberpunk team have recieved forcing a lot of developers (including lead designer) to completely unplug from twitter for a few days?
Its crazy how people can idolize a game (or any game) so much but at the same time **** on the people that worked hard to make in the blink of an eye
EDIT: On topic though: I dont know if a trend has been found but I am sure this is being studied by some researchers somewhere by now. I can confirm its this way in UK though
Aside from Nuking the planet and letting cockroaches build a better world… (/joke)
I’m currently leaning towards the idea that it makes sense to release games on stores that do not provide forum boards, and disable forum discussions on the resources that do. People can’t spew hatred on a forum board, if one does not exist.
I’m currently playing Cyberpunk 2077. I’m actually enjoyed it, even though I hated RDR2, didn’t quite like GTA5 and so on. Sure, there are some oversights, but… the stuff on steam community discussion is pure insanity. That made me start thinking.
Personally I feel like rather than quality going down the drain, expectations shoot through the roof and people take more things for granted than they did before. Another puzzling thing I’ve encountered is that there are more people who think that developers are required to adhere to their every whim. They think they’re employers, not buyers. Which is not the case.
It’s not. IT is in relation in me playing cyberpunk, enjoying it, and making a mistake of taking a glance at what’s going on on steam forums. Then I remembered that this seems to be happening every time anything is released.
I am playing cyberpunk too and am enjoying it! Sure there is some stuff they had to cut and there could be a bit more interaction in the world (like a lot of it feels hollow after about 20 hours due to repetition of the same static assets you cannot interact with) considering how they marketed it, but the actual core game is solid and I am loving it as a cyperpunk RPG which is what its supposed to be. But yes I also read steam and reddit and I should not have because people there pick on the smallest things.
Theres lots of posts of people moaning that theres no trains but still a 3d model for the trainline. Its like moan if its delayed, moan if stuff gets cut. Gamers be gamers I guess.
I also find it strange because Witcher 3 came out with basically same issues, bug ridden and lots of stuff cut or different from expectations such as graphics, everyone went mental, and then they patched it up and released more content and suddenly if was everyones baby darling.
For Cyberpunk I predict the same people sending deaththreats now, will be the ones shouting how its the best game ever once CDPR also patch it to the same extent etc
I’m not a fan of blanket “group X is getting worse” claims.
I’m also not a fan of “people shouldn’t be allowed to voice criticisms” claims (this is what you’re saying when you say games shouldn’t have forums).
Sad sacks who get off on complaining about things have always and will always exist. Their voices shouldn’t drown out those who have legitimate complaints, or want discussion (and cutting off everyone because of the existence of the former is letting them dictate the conversation).
The claim is based on experience. And it is not “Group X”, but The Internet in general. I remember the internet before youtube.
They are allowed to voice their criticism in their own property, on their own blog and so on. There are millions ways to do it.
My issue here is that people appear to feel that they’re entitled to be heard by a specific person, and think that said person is obliged to tolerate their behavior. Which is not the case.
Dealing with lunatics, insults and especially death threats is mentally taxing, and a human being should not be subjected to such treatment. If poor behavior becomes a common occurrence, then rather than tolerating nutcases, it would be better idea to completely shut down the area where attacks occur, so there will be no more of them.
It is also possible to go further and revoke person’s rights to buy a product of this company, by blacklisting their future purchases but this is much more likely to run into legal issues.
Basically, if communities do not appear to be places which help promotion of the game and creating positive experience from actual users, why have the communities in the first place? They can be removed.
It’s not the gaming community specifically, but the internet in general. Being an anonymous figure on the internet lets people yell & scream & say whatever they want about anything without caring about being respectful or worrying about the things they say coming back to bite them.
The gaming community just happens to be huge.
Did you notice this on other gaming forums? GoG or others? I wouldn’t be much surprised if it was a Steam thing although the internet is going haywire nowadays, unfortunately…
I expect that a lot of people were having a crap year and were relying on getting lost in their dream game to save their locked down souls. Personally I think people are living in games (and social media for that matter) way too much these days, but that’s their choice.
But it’s a sad reality of games today that crumpled, burning hype-trains are way too common. None of these big companies do something unexpectedly magnificent, it’s a choice between 10% as good as you thought or 50%. It’s almost like the hype of games is the main event, with 10 years of partying and fanfare, while releasing the game is just a thing you do at the end to round things off.
I think there is lots of blame on game studio side as well, when they start pumping hype with promos and vids and promising whats not. Then at release, bunch of features is just cut out.
I love Witcher 3 and I did all of it with DLC. I haven’t played yet cyberpunk. Here is one thing, which is common between both of them. Both production promised living world, some great AI etc.And that probably one of many things cut out. Both failed to provide that. Whether that spoils fun and gameplay, that depends on individuals. But expectations are already set on to community.
To be honest, after Witcher 3, I expected at least some of that in cyberpunk. From what I read, this is rather lacking.
My point is not about these two games however. But about trending, that community is not fully at fault of their beloved game title, whatever it is.
Okay, sure. You didn’t say that in your OP though, that’s what I was basing that on.
You’re characterizing things in such a black and white manner. It’s entirely possible for reception to be generally positive, but with a couple morons who bash it incessantly. Cases like Cyberpunk are really not the norm. How many games have released between this and the last “controversial” game (Last of Us Part II as far as I can tell)? Most don’t have the reception these games do, so it doesn’t make sense to use them as the baseline for what one can expect to experience.
I also think it’s possible for the deliberate decision to limit or prevent discussion to have a negative impact on the perception of your product and your brand. Probably better to do it in a blanket manner for all discussion, than what we see in some communities where specific topics get deleted, but it will still occur.
And ultimately, A) if it doesn’t exist at a space you own, it can pop up elsewhere (like reddit), and B) in both cases (your own forums or another entity’s), you don’t have to engage with it. It doesn’t have to take any toll on you.
It does happen on other resources. I’m not sure about gog, because I never read it, but it became much more common that in case of any sort of disagreement the other person will go for flinging insults immediately.
And? The way I see it, those couple of morons have to be removed.
Yes, of course. However, not dealing with entitled lunatics may be worth it.
If it pops up elsewhere, it isn’t developers problem.
As to “you don’t have to engage it” is not really true. Because if you see it, you’ve engaged it, whether you want it or not.
Basically, if you have somebody standing at your door screaming “I’ll murder you and your family”, ignoring them is not necessarily the right idea, and it will put a toll on you.
And if poor behavior happens on a board associated with your game, then said behavior affects perception of your brand and your game - negatively. Because your product will be associated with toxicity and hatred. Which is not a good thing.