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)
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.
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.
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.
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.