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Epic’s Statement on Misinformation & Abuse [See Staff Post] [UP: Devs release statement]
- Thread starter anastiel
- Start date
Must be horrible pouring your life and soul into game dev and getting this in return.
I think YouTubers/influencers commenting on this stuff need to take a long hard look before pressing that upload button. They may think "I don't condone that sort of behaviour and make that clear in (some of) my videos, therefore I've done my part", but no, if you jump on a hot controversy involving smaller devs that aren't protected by a corporate PR team, you're increasing their risk of harassment. It's bullshit, but it's true, and those with a big following need to be more responsible with what they cover and understand the potential consequences.
I think YouTubers/influencers commenting on this stuff need to take a long hard look before pressing that upload button. They may think "I don't condone that sort of behaviour and make that clear in (some of) my videos, therefore I've done my part", but no, if you jump on a hot controversy involving smaller devs that aren't protected by a corporate PR team, you're increasing their risk of harassment. It's bullshit, but it's true, and those with a big following need to be more responsible with what they cover and understand the potential consequences.
I mean, this hasn't been a happy hobby for years, just for a lot of people the toxicity is out of sight out of mind.
Some of the EGS critics have legit and constructive criticism while others are simply toxic and narrow minded. Some studios made this decision to ensure their survival and I'm okay with that.
It's this constant toxicity everyday that makes me game less and less.
It's this constant toxicity everyday that makes me game less and less.
Many months ago, I made the comparison of Epic joining the PC gaming fray being similar to Sony joining console gaming in the 90s or MS joining in 2001. Much gnashing of teeth as people adjusted to the new normal of many of their favorite franchises being relocated.
It would seem that I was shortsighted. Was there as much vitriol back then? Probably. But even with online message boards creating an echo chamber, there was no significant social media presence to give people this kind of direct access to devs and publishers.
Much in the same way that I'd never understand directly reaching out to an athlete and telling him/her to go to hell for accepting money with a different team, I still don't understand the mindset of the people who devote the energy and downright malice of these attack campaigns.
I'd say "save this energy for politics" but I've seen the shitshow of celebrity politician Twitter feeds. Just... take a step back. Breath. Imagine what your friends, families, and coworkers would think if they see that message. Try to see yourself suddenly having 1000 death threats in your inbox just for trying to negotiate a better salary in your field.
It would seem that I was shortsighted. Was there as much vitriol back then? Probably. But even with online message boards creating an echo chamber, there was no significant social media presence to give people this kind of direct access to devs and publishers.
Much in the same way that I'd never understand directly reaching out to an athlete and telling him/her to go to hell for accepting money with a different team, I still don't understand the mindset of the people who devote the energy and downright malice of these attack campaigns.
I'd say "save this energy for politics" but I've seen the shitshow of celebrity politician Twitter feeds. Just... take a step back. Breath. Imagine what your friends, families, and coworkers would think if they see that message. Try to see yourself suddenly having 1000 death threats in your inbox just for trying to negotiate a better salary in your field.
I was expecting way more from that 'statement.' It's really short and doesn't actually provide any substance to the discussion. People with money can do what they want. It's a sad fact. They're not doing it to be competitive. They're doing it in the hopes to get more money.
As much as I hate the EGS idk if this is worth the fight anymore if this is the outcome of all of it. No matter what dumb thing the devs said to make people think they were justified in taking shit this far, it was not. Even that "Reeee" shit was not any justification for what happened because I too did not know that meme had autistic connotations.
I mean people act liked he went on a discrimination spree on the internet but all he did was make dumb wise cracks that were ill advised, if even that at best; none of that meant that the entire weight of social media descending on his head was his just rewards. And then that elaborate fake of him making some gas chamber joke that people cooked up....like holy fuck, is this where we are at now?
I feel like the longer this goes on and the louder and louder the dregs of social media start becoming more bold, even people who had sympathy for the those affected negatively by EGS or want it out the picture are gonna start taking a step back and that is a shame because there are legitimate concerns of what Epic is trying to do and I would prefer if they fucked off but after this past weekend idk anymore.
Maybe I am wrong but I feel like in the future, barring any ill advised blog posts, we won't see anymore "I understand, take the money" type messages for new EGS announcements but more people will feel emboldened to just start throwing out the hate from the get go. Hope I am wrong but I feel like shit took a real turn over the last few days and it is only gonna get worse.
Personally I'll just do what I have done since like 2 months ago and just blank any EGS deal. Not worth the emotional investment to get angry over a game and its not like it is exclusive forever so I can just wait it out.
I mean people act liked he went on a discrimination spree on the internet but all he did was make dumb wise cracks that were ill advised, if even that at best; none of that meant that the entire weight of social media descending on his head was his just rewards. And then that elaborate fake of him making some gas chamber joke that people cooked up....like holy fuck, is this where we are at now?
I feel like the longer this goes on and the louder and louder the dregs of social media start becoming more bold, even people who had sympathy for the those affected negatively by EGS or want it out the picture are gonna start taking a step back and that is a shame because there are legitimate concerns of what Epic is trying to do and I would prefer if they fucked off but after this past weekend idk anymore.
Maybe I am wrong but I feel like in the future, barring any ill advised blog posts, we won't see anymore "I understand, take the money" type messages for new EGS announcements but more people will feel emboldened to just start throwing out the hate from the get go. Hope I am wrong but I feel like shit took a real turn over the last few days and it is only gonna get worse.
Personally I'll just do what I have done since like 2 months ago and just blank any EGS deal. Not worth the emotional investment to get angry over a game and its not like it is exclusive forever so I can just wait it out.
The responses to that tweet are heartbreaking. Nonstop victim blaming and "it's on you that we believe it" (and even "I actually still believe it"):
Like, really. You're so out of your mind that you find "gamers belong in gas chambers" to be in line with anything else the dev has said?
These are not cherry picked: they are the first replies to his tweet. This isn't 8chan, or even 4chan: it's Twitter, they can't escape these replies without shutting down their social media presence and killing off marketing entirely.
This is an incredibly apt comparison that I hadn't considered before.
Yes, it did get heated back then, but it was such a different time and the internet was so much "smaller" that the flashpoints never really spread beyond their niche. It got bad, especially in Sega focused communities, but it never really broke out beyond the chatrooms and forums it started in.
The cultural reach of the internet is now so vast that it's extremely difficult to escape, almost impossible if your work is directly tied to it. I shudder to imagine something like "Sony killing Sega" happening today.
Posting an ableist meme obviously does not justify harassment and death threats.
Harassment and death threats should not retroactively excuse posting an ableist meme.
Both are wrong, and deserving of an appropriate level of opprobrium, independently of each other.
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Maybe this is buried in the thread and I apologize if I didn't find it, but is there a more legitimate source on the nature of the harassment than an EGS statement? Until this thread, this wasn't the narrative I was getting so I would love to get some sense of how it just shifted so dramatically here.
I am also a little confused by this new approach of making comparisons to GamerGate for this. When I think back to that (ongoing) hell, I am most offended by how they talked about women and minorities. It feels like there are better comparisons to make if it's a matter of threats alone this time, and that bringing it out here understates how evil GamerGate was. Again though, I feel like I must be missing some thread or some post somewhere, so just correct me if I'm wrong and I can edit. Not fishing for a ban here.
I am also a little confused by this new approach of making comparisons to GamerGate for this. When I think back to that (ongoing) hell, I am most offended by how they talked about women and minorities. It feels like there are better comparisons to make if it's a matter of threats alone this time, and that bringing it out here understates how evil GamerGate was. Again though, I feel like I must be missing some thread or some post somewhere, so just correct me if I'm wrong and I can edit. Not fishing for a ban here.
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More the volume and level of shit being thrown more than anything. Even folks who are against EGS saw that none of that was worth what the devs had to deal with, regardless of what justification was being presented.
Oh and also because someone cooked up a hoax video to make it seem like the dev was making/made a gas chamber meme....yeah, I am not joking. This EGS shit has gone on long enough and gone deep enough that it is dragging the bottom scum to the top along with the rest. This is the anti-EGS' "ethics in games journalism" moment right here.
Ah, fair enough. It definitely does seem to have escaped the constraints of what it was allegedly about. I can see some parallels in how things are sort of hate-spiraling, sure. I think I still struggle to really put it on that GG tier of evil at this point, but I get where people are coming from if it's about the progression.
People were protective of their toys back then just as they are now. Difference is everyone can easily voice their opinions with no real accountability due to the annonymity of it.
It truly is awful.
I'm sure next year we'll be reaching new heights in gaming side with the new boxes as the internet certainly hasn't gotten any prettier in the last 7 or so years. It will be brutal.
And I don't think there's a solution either. Companies have been pitting us against each other for as long as I can remember and that's not going to stop. And we are all happy to oblige. This whole industry is built on conflict, sadly it's part of the original DNA.
Marketing of the 80s created the monster, fed it and at some point part of it started to mutate into this us vs them, companies/devs vs userbase mentality, and here we are today. Smallest of matches will ignite some part of the userbase and if it gains enough momentum some dingbats will latch their hate message on that train when it suits them.
Yeah, people are quick to forget but this isn't anything new, it's just the latest.
I'm sure next year we'll be reaching new heights in gaming side with the new boxes as the internet certainly hasn't gotten any prettier in the last 7 or so years. It will be brutal.
And I don't think there's a solution either. Companies have been pitting us against each other for as long as I can remember and that's not going to stop. And we are all happy to oblige. This whole industry is built on conflict, sadly it's part of the original DNA.
Marketing of the 80s created the monster, fed it and at some point part of it started to mutate into this us vs them, companies/devs vs userbase mentality, and here we are today. Smallest of matches will ignite some part of the userbase and if it gains enough momentum some dingbats will latch their hate message on that train when it suits them.
They have Epic's money, they are safe financially, at that point they should just shut down all social media and go full blackout, work on their game, and only speak to their patreon backers. Do what Hello games did.
They should protect themselves and stop attempting to interact with the trash, it's a trap, those people are not listening, they do not deserve it, they are not interested in learning anything.
They cannot stop the deluge of morons, EGS has become a bat signal for the gamergate/toxic gamer crowd, all they want is someone to harass and hate on.
They should protect themselves and stop attempting to interact with the trash, it's a trap, those people are not listening, they do not deserve it, they are not interested in learning anything.
They cannot stop the deluge of morons, EGS has become a bat signal for the gamergate/toxic gamer crowd, all they want is someone to harass and hate on.
User Banned (Two Weeks): Ignoring staff post
I can't say I'm surprised by the reaction; this is how toxic the gaming community has always been. I'm not really sure how to curtail the behavior either because the worst 1-10% are responsible for the abuse. Unfortunately, this is the situation now because of Epic's image problem in the community and the repercussions of anyone doing business with them right now, which the Ooblets developers tried to do damage control pre-emptively, just extremely poorly.
Not sure if Epic handling the PR themselves would be much better, but they could provide resources or tell Developers what not to say or do while making their exclusivity announcement like maybe not implying you can't care about Climate Change and not like the EGS at the same time.
Not sure if Epic handling the PR themselves would be much better, but they could provide resources or tell Developers what not to say or do while making their exclusivity announcement like maybe not implying you can't care about Climate Change and not like the EGS at the same time.
Yup. I don't support the Epic Store and I'm not going to use it personally, but if they buy a game, I'll just walk away and play something else.
It's a fucking video game. It's not even worth anger, let alone hateful stuff being thrown at them.
User Banned (Two Weeks): Ignoring staff post
Well the devs didnt help by telling people to use their energy in better things
I used to be irrationally angry at how dismissive people were and how they would say it's just a launcher, but at the end of the day, it is. I won't buy anything from the EGS and just wait until the games I want come to Steam/get it on GamePass, but my god, some of y'all need to take a step back and reflect. You can still boycott/be anti-EGS and be mature at the same time.
I'm so tired of this ongoing sentiment of "well it wouldn't have been so bad if the devs had made exactly the right statement when this first came out that was sufficiently deferential to all my concerns and sensitivities." Yeah, the original statement they made could've been a bit less patronizing. Yeah, they could use a bit more media savvy and/or training. No, they're not wrong that there are many, many, MANY more important things in the world than what storefront you buy your games from. No, I don't hold a grudge against the devs for making unfortunate statements in their Discord, given that by that point they were already being deluged by angry comments and they're just two fucking human beings trying to make a game who have their own shit to deal with and may or may not be uniquely equipped to deal with a flash hate mob. And no, it 100% does not justify even a tiny portion of the hate they've gotten for the move.
This forum was supposed to be better than this. All the people in the world who suddenly cannot afford a game because EGS doesn't support their currency and so have to deal with bad foreign exchange rates, or who feel like they should be able to buy the game on their platform of choice, who feel owed options that EGS doesn't support due to it being a less mature platform--all of this cannot be worth the continued misery people heap upon the developers. It can't. And if you think it can, ask yourself why you think this is so important to you. Tell us why you think it's so important. And if your reason essentially comes down to "well they were shitty about it first," know that that excuse doesn't fly IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL.
This forum was supposed to be better than this. All the people in the world who suddenly cannot afford a game because EGS doesn't support their currency and so have to deal with bad foreign exchange rates, or who feel like they should be able to buy the game on their platform of choice, who feel owed options that EGS doesn't support due to it being a less mature platform--all of this cannot be worth the continued misery people heap upon the developers. It can't. And if you think it can, ask yourself why you think this is so important to you. Tell us why you think it's so important. And if your reason essentially comes down to "well they were shitty about it first," know that that excuse doesn't fly IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL.
That this is the reaction to the mildest of poking is so telling of the state of discourse in gaming.
You know what doesn't help, the both siding of all these half arsed hissy fits.
No one can just say "this is stupid, we don't need to have this discussion" it always has to be couched with "there are sensible questions to be asked about EGS/game journalism/ censorship of anime tits"
At a certain point it becomes obvious what is going to happen and all attempt at sensible debate becomes pointless.
None of these discussion points are worth allowing harassment but that is exactly what we do by continuing to suggest that the latest "gamer cause" is in anyway valid.
If the Epic Store is the worst digital store front in the world, you know what? It doesn't actually matter that much.
If all games journalists are completely corrupt? Doesn't matter, it's games journalism. They are reviewing digital toys.
If you want to say that I am dismissing complaints about the EGS, you're damn right. In this context, seeing what happened during GG, I am sick of giving people enough rope to hang innocent people.
You know what doesn't help, the both siding of all these half arsed hissy fits.
No one can just say "this is stupid, we don't need to have this discussion" it always has to be couched with "there are sensible questions to be asked about EGS/game journalism/ censorship of anime tits"
At a certain point it becomes obvious what is going to happen and all attempt at sensible debate becomes pointless.
None of these discussion points are worth allowing harassment but that is exactly what we do by continuing to suggest that the latest "gamer cause" is in anyway valid.
If the Epic Store is the worst digital store front in the world, you know what? It doesn't actually matter that much.
If all games journalists are completely corrupt? Doesn't matter, it's games journalism. They are reviewing digital toys.
If you want to say that I am dismissing complaints about the EGS, you're damn right. In this context, seeing what happened during GG, I am sick of giving people enough rope to hang innocent people.
Statement from the devs
Harassment is not acceptable, and anyone doing so should be ashamed of themselves/held accountable. Dislike EGS policies and they way they do business all you want. Hell, say so, if you like.
But take a fucking stand against harassment. As a community, we need to be better about self-policing.
But take a fucking stand against harassment. As a community, we need to be better about self-policing.
while EGS-attackers are afraid that the gamergate comparison will stifle their voice and serve as a way to end conversation, there are also real parallels to the gamergate situation; that there is rife "gamer-anger" or whatever that can easily be taken advantage of the way the alt-right used, recruited, and propagated gamergate, the general forwarding of the idea that journalists are being paid off to shill certain ideas, the idea that the "consumer" is central above all else, the characterization of a an "us vs them" mentality when looking at poorly thought out PR messages, etc. An early talking point that has thankfully been pretty much stamped out was that EGS was some sort of Chinese trojan horse from tencent, a weapon they could use to take over the market. The EGS topic is nowhere near gamergate in scale, but many worry that it is a breeding ground for something similar and would like to nip that in the bud since the foment of gamergate was very recent and the historical lessons we received from it spur ppl to really just be wary of any movement that involves gamer anger -> threats -> etc.
Those screenshots, holy fucking shit. I've no words
"Don't disrespect the PC gamers" is all kinds of crazy shit, and sounds like that "Gamers Rise Up" joke/meme, but 100% serious this time.
Good God, those screencaps they share are awful. Mind the trigger warnings posted at the start of the post...they're not exaggerating.
it truly is; even in Epic threads on era I feel like I am in bizzaro world where I have no idea if half the people are being genuine or just trolling.
It blows my mind what people are capable of. And for what?
I think the post kind of nails it in one: by and large, most of these people don't actually care about EGS. Or they wouldn't, if others weren't whipping them up about it. They saw a thing that other people were telling them was an injustice and decided to attack. And in the video game community, you distinguish yourself as part of the team by getting angrier and more extreme than the other guy.
It continues to blow me away that people can equate their identity as inherently tied to one corporation over another, to the point of harassing people over using a different corporation's GAME LAUNCHER. Really drives home how susceptible the human mind is to propaganda.
The types that label themselves as "PC master race" always bragged about being above the childishness of the console wars, but here we are.
The types that label themselves as "PC master race" always bragged about being above the childishness of the console wars, but here we are.
It's frustrating to read this while also seeing people downplay, or concern troll about people disregarding legit complaints because of this, or act like EGS "it's just a launcher" trolling is the "real" problem.
I'll own up to making a kinda dumb post yesterday that could easily be misconstrued as blaming the devs for bringing this on themselves.
the backlash against EGS exclusivity has gotten way too heated and is overwhelming valid, good-faith criticism. I don't really have a solution, unfortunately
the backlash against EGS exclusivity has gotten way too heated and is overwhelming valid, good-faith criticism. I don't really have a solution, unfortunately
I saw this shit coming months ago just based on the escalating behavior of Era posters in EGS threads. At this point, I doubt that there is a good solution because this was allowed to fester for so long with the EGS Thread Guidelines being little more than a band-aid on a wound turning gangrenous.
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