funny how it's august as well that this happened
but yes, it was always this bad
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Epic’s Statement on Misinformation & Abuse [See Staff Post] [UP: Devs release statement]
- Thread starter anastiel
- Start date
funny how it's august as well that this happened
but yes, it was always this bad
No, the first thing I did was post this on Page 1:
"My condolences to the developers. No matter what relatively minor missteps they may have made in their announcement and PR work, two people trying to make a nice game for people should never have to deal with the outright hatred and insanity leveled at them for a conflict well beyond their control."
The second thing I did was point out how there seems to be a prevalence among harassers to heavily identify as part of the anime community. See, you have to take order into account.
Well maybe on Era we can have a week of nice constructive discussion. Most of the most toxic members were banned. It'll be interesting (and maybe nice) how EGS threads play out this week.
I dared suggest it was not the end of the world for games to become store-exclusive and was accused of selling out my ethics for an Epic paycheck.
In a way, yes. But the industry grow on sports team spirit. That's why we have PC vs Console and Console VS Console "wars".
Please tell me how am i being toxic, please.
I was asked why was i being a corporate bootlicker.
"We" (the vast majority of people in this hobby) aren't doing anything wrong.
It's the tiny (yet vocal) asshole-minority that's the problem. It just sucks that in our social media age, these people have such a loud voice and get too much attention. Same can be said for Star Wars, Apple and every other "community"*.
Back in the 90s nobody was able to harass Square developers for taking FF off of Nintedo systems. Nobody could harass John Romero, because Daikatana sucked. Nowadays, all it takes is a couple of tweets/PMs/reddit posts.
I might be naive, but it would probably be best, if companies, devs and the gaming media would report these incidents to the police whithout giving these incels attention.
* I have issues with the term "community" because in most cases, it's just random, unrelated people that are being lumped together under a catchy tag ("Gamers are outraged at XXXX", "StarWars fans are losing their mind over XXXX")
A few days ago I saw some screenshots of the Ooblets discord pass on my twitter feed, which was being spammed with threats, racism, and sexism, as well as a note that gore, and violent porn were left out of the screenshots. Can't say I'm super surprised, since the usual suspects latched onto the EGS outrage bandwagon almost from the start already. They love nothing more than escalating things over alleged concerns, and they are easily mobilised over perceived threats to the status quo, or gamer identities. And like back then, any legitimate concerns can be tossed in the bin for the time being because they become indistinguishable from the justifications of harassment. It sucks for people who mean well and express themselves respectfully to those developers, but at the end of the day, they're still going to be yet another drop in the ocean that's trying to drown these developers.
You constantly conflate your own perspective of it being just another launcher with the general reality for all people. I told you I had to buy a specific expensive Win10 license and you suggested I should get a black market key. And again lament in this thread about toxicity that it's just another launcher when that is proven to be false.
I saw this happening when alt right grifters like The Quartering started weighing in on EGS. To them this is just another recruitment tool, which is disappointing as someone who really dislikes EGS and wouldn't even dream of partaking in any of the toxic harassment regardless of how I feel about the events leading up to it.
Having an opinion isn't being toxic. Being against toxicity isn't toxic. Specifically attacking fellow users is toxic, and that's ironically what you're doing (albeit mildly).
Your depiction of the discussions going on here is innaccurate though.
And yes, brushing away other users concern as "just a launcher" is a toxic mindset. It's not because you dont care about something that it can't have a slight of importance for another user.
Mind you though, this isn't important as of right now. When threats are at stake, I dont think those discussions should happen.
But the fact is that it's just another free software you just have to download, period, and even if it isn't, it doesn't justify all the shit that's going on. If your issue with all this shit is that there's people saying that it is another free launcher, thani have bad news for you.
Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I haven't seen exactly a healthy discussion about the subject over here, and it bothers me that it took Epic's statement to see it heavily moderated.
But what obthers me the most, is that despite that this is the place where the discussion was the healthiest.
But that *is* ignorance and because you don't understand or care about how the economic effect of exclusivity, and the debate on how markets work and the effect on consumers of artificial scarcity, and the other issues around it.
Remember that EGS isn't a unequivocally pro developer project. It's a highly curated store and have rejected multiple developers for various reasons. It's not "pro developer" to defend EGS, and people who do not understand this, and worse paint those who actually have more to say about the issue beyond "it's just a storefront" as toxic is actually exceptionally damaging.
Just because you aren't interested in actual debate on issues people see as important doesn't give you the right to dismiss it.
It's quite simple. Hate bad, debate good. If you want to conflate the two, that's unhelpful. We need to be able to discuss, and disagree with respect and trust that our views will be respected if not agreed with.
Healthy discussions cant happen when a set of users dismiss other users concerns.
Then again, now isnt the place to have this conversation. More important things are at stakes here, namely two devs being threatened.
On a digital store accessible in the same hardware as the other stores, i'm sorry to say this but i fail to see how this is a real threat.
we're not talking about a GameStop exclusivity of a physical game's limited edition. It's a dowloadable game, whose stock is never going to dry out, on a different storefront.
And i'm deleting the rest of the writeup because i don't want to be banned. Either way, this isn't what we should be talking about. I'm getting the impression that you care more about the EGS than the issue at hand.
No, you conflated being called out for your ignorance with the issue of developers getting death threats.
You're ignorant. The developers here are people who defended their project with passion and a bit of misplaced wording. My views on that subject are clear and if you read my posts on the subject here and think I care more about EGS than the welfare of people who have been the subject of death threats then I do not know what to tell you.
Hopefully we can atleast get our house in order here on Era. I'd hate to think that we were contributing to the toxic atmosphere that leads to this harassment. This is allegedly supposed to be one of the more pregressive gaming forums, but that's certainly not the impression you'd get visiting any of our EGS related threads.
I have found it fascinating that basically every "*game* goes Epic exclusive" thread tends to attract multiple thousand posts. I straight up don't believe the majority of people here had heard of, or knew anything about Ooblets before this mess.
Well that's the impression you're giving me by jumping the gun in a thread where the subject just have no place to be.
And one could argue you're using this thread to express your opinion on the EGS stuff when it's clearly not the place to do so.
This is why throwing accusations of ill intent in that thread is bad.
Then again, none of that matters. There are actual people being threatened RIGHT NOW.
I've been thinking about this a bit and I think it has everything to do with being too invested in something. I know that the common rebuttal is, "well, we're on an enthusiast video game forum", but I still think there's a line that needs to be established. People's well being is obviously far more important than some video games. Often times I see posts where people clearly have an unhealthy relationship with a game/company/platform. That kind of heavy investment has a strong potential to turn into radicalization.
We need to accept that there's a such thing as caring about video games too much.
The Ooblets devs essentially said the same thing, which was, "before you go off on us, get some perspective" and they were 100% correct. The people who lost their shit over Epic exclusivity need to step back from the internet for a while.
User banned (2 months): ignoring the modpost, trolling in a sensitive thread
Yeah, and my posts had the intention of being an example of the toxicity of the threads. My opinion of the EGS here in this thread is, and should be, irrelevant.
Both discussions can be had at the same time, their nature and subject are completely different.
Absolutely. Whilst this is not the thread for such discussions, being against the EGS for legitimate reasons is not in any way contradictory to being against toxicity towards those in the industry.
Yes fair enough, I certainly wasn't trying to derail. The harassment these devs are getting is obviously beyond the pale and hopefully they come out the other side ok.
Trolls have used anime avatars since the '90s to deflect attacks and to make their profiles look legitimate. Be very careful about this line of thinking.
Exactly.
God forbid if we reach the point where we can't discuss issues with respect any more. Honestly we are getting closer to that than I would like too.
We have to depersonalise the debate. These developers aren't out to fuck *you* over taking these deals. They're doing right for themselves and you know what, that's fine! It's also fine to say that you disagree with the call from your point of view.
It's not ok to act like the Devs owe us anything personally, and obviously completely insane to threaten, harass or intimidate because of it.
If someone acts against your interests like this, you say toodles. That's it, you can put your interests first and not be a dick to others in the process.
It was highlighted at E3 for the PC gaming show, and they have a huge twitter following.
I agree that it should be possible but then there's also reading the room. Airing one's grievances about a developer taking a EGS deal to survive in a moment where the developers are getting harassed and threatened is probably not the best thing to do. just saying as a general advice. :-)
I don't disagree with you that the general controversy has a big hatemob making noise over a game that they were never interested in. I just don't know if that definition applies here specifically.
Thats why i would never ever will understand the posters in this forum that were crying "bu bu but both sides!" like if they were Trump, I thought people at era would be more clever than that.
Dealing with your own fanbase can be sometimes be REALLY hard, I know ive been there, and sometimes, you cant take it anymore. I cant blame the devs of Ooblets for anything they did and the fault was all on the hateful side. End of argument, full stop.
And even if you can find fault, it's not a bad thing to tell your own side to shut the fuck up for 5 minutes so we can give space, to support people who are being hurt and move on from there.
Maybe it's a parent thing coming through but the ability to tell someone off for something doesn't preclude caring for them. And moreover we need to still protect Devs, the community and everyone from abuse by those who wish to do us harm.
Does rehashing the pros and cons of Steam and EGS on a daily basis really add anything to Era? At this point I'd argue that all it's doing is feeding into the toxicity. I didn't think anything could go beyond the relentless back and forth on TLJ, but here we are.
Actually no.
That's why I don't generally post in EGS threads. My views are known. It doesn't change with each instance to be honest.
Solid advice. I think the mod post of this thread is a very good solution for keeping the discussion focused on the main issue.
I think it does. We often assume that the few bad actors that infiltrate these discussions dictate the terms of them but I don't believe that to be true. I'd like to elaborate but I'm not sure if this thread is the proper venue and I'd rather err on the side of caution. I really don't want to pull any focus from the issue of harassment.
I can understand where you are coming from feep, but its better not to use kind of generalising, and if using it, specify it more. For example, while it seems to be somewhat true in american english speaking forums or twitter that a lot of people with anime avatars can be vile, harrasers, trump gamergater supporters..., the problem here is that the a lot of the american anime fanbase is completely different from the european anime fanbase (just to put an example), same fanbase that probably also tends to use those avatars. Why the radical different views, even political, between one countries fanbase vs the rest of the world? who knows, and is probably more rooted into how that media is comsumed relatively recently and the people who consume it vs other countries where has always been there as another normal nerd thing. Thats why I can understand why some people are fed up of the generalising and vilifying a whole media just because of a type of fanbase mostly centered in a sole country, and even then im sure a TON of american anime fans are also excellent people that support noble causes. Also it really accomplishes nothing I think. Ive seen more then a few times in this same forum some people dismissing an opinion (an actual inoccent opinion, non political, hateful or anything like that) just becuase of the avatar the other poster had, an actually saying them that to their face. Thats really not cool at all.
Its better just to criticise individuals that are the ones doing, for example in this case, harrasment, or the actual groups made just for that or political factions with shitty views, than just going for the nubolous idea of a media fanbase that composes a lot of types of people.
I hope this is written comprehensively as english is not my first language and I dont want this to sound that im dismissing harrasers or hate groups in any way. Those pople and groups should be criticised rightfully.
The people using that rhetoric were, though it's unclear what you actually mean there, most likely banned, and rightly so. The people who criticised the developer's comments at first and in the proper situation weren't because it was perfectly fine to do so.
This isn't necessarily directed at you but I think conflating the developers comments or even the fact that they took the EGS deal with the legitimately awful hate that they've been getting misses the point entirely; that includes the obvious victim blaming stuff and the 'but the EGS store is bad!' posts but also posts like this which bring up prior threads and hate-free youtube videos that the poster disagrees with as if they were examples of the harassment; In both situations it honestly makes it look like people care more about seeing their own side 'win' than they do about the fact that two people are facing completely disgusting ire from a unfortunately-not-so-insignificant group of people.
Essentially the reasoning behind the hate shouldn't even come into consideration in my eyes because, at the end of the day, it's still hate, and hate like this should be called out with complete neutrality as to better show to those doing it that what they're doing is wrong no matter how 'justified' they believe it is.
I am not generalizing to the point where I think any random anime fan is a dickbag. Only a small segment of the community is vile, just like only a small segment of the gaming community is vile.
But it *is* worth examining that the small few who *are* vile seem to very frequently identify so strongly with these fandoms. From gaming we've seen GamerGate, and from anime, recently, we've seen all this Vic Mignogna shit. It's worth examining what about these communities draws in these young men and radicalizes them to a point that few other communities are able to do.
But it's directly related to the harassment issue. Is it worth this?
The harassment hasn't strictly been developers or Epic and has hit very close to home for Era.
here's the reason: lonely, privileged white men alienated from capitalism grows up in a white supremacist society with a settler colonial history. when they see that the system is failing them and that society is crumbling around them due to inequality, war, poverty, etc., instead of blaming the white rich oligarchs exploiting people and hoarding all the money, they swallow the reactionary propaganda (and racist history of the country) and think that brown people are the problem.
the video games industry cultivate a culture rife with militarism, fascism, and white supremacy, so this attracts such people and also reinforces their beliefs.
I wasn't too happy with the devs explanation for the switch and offered some constructive criticism back when they announced it.
This however is something else entirely, what sort of vile and deplorable creature starts using abuse, mob judgement, doxxing, slandering and smearing to get their point across. I'm utterly appalled.
This however is something else entirely, what sort of vile and deplorable creature starts using abuse, mob judgement, doxxing, slandering and smearing to get their point across. I'm utterly appalled.
Hah.
Honestly I have been going through in my head for literary examples of fanbases being a bit, you know, toxic?
All of them so far have been examples that you cited already as nerd culture and can be tied directly to gaming culture.
Fantasy/Tolkien? Nerd culture, Harry Potter? GoT/ASOIF?
Fuck. Yeah there's a common thread here.
I just can't.
This is quite disheartening, to be honest.
I mean, I know one of the Ooblets dev wasn't the most polite person in the world, either on his blog or at discord, but I really got sick of seeing lots of specific screenshots on the internet about what wrong and/or rude things he did say. Nobody deserves that.
I mean, I know one of the Ooblets dev wasn't the most polite person in the world, either on his blog or at discord, but I really got sick of seeing lots of specific screenshots on the internet about what wrong and/or rude things he did say. Nobody deserves that.
This is true and im 100% for what you say. Thats why I think is also important to compare and study while one group of countries anime's fanbase is completely different even on political views than the other. Its exactly the same type of media consumed around the world than in america so the question is why? why are they so radically different?
Theres a big difference in how its consumed that i can see could change how big parts of these fanbases have different types of views in that, while in a large part of the world anime was huge and normalized starting from the 70's, america didnt start big till dragon ball in the mid 90's (thats normal as they had their own huge cartoon media industry to consume), that and it seems to have a huge stigma for a big part of its population. While in France, Spain or Italy, just to put some examples, kids that are now parents watched anime as some kind of more social thing on normal TV (and this was because american cartoon media was more expensive to buy for the channels than anime, and these countries had VERY small cartoon media produced by them to fll the schedules), and those parents brought it to their childrens just like any other normal nerd media thing, america had anime turning popular just as the internet was strating to get more accesible. It was more about downloading an episode, and watching it in your own, only talking about them on forums and chats, or at most watching it in cable tv dubbed, with a huge part of the population just dismissing it. Maybe the reclusiveness of this new just born fanbase and the rapid growth of the internet had something to do with it.
But thats just one thing that can be, that I notice being from another country but at the same time being most of my time around american english speaking forums. Im not a porfessional of searching data and im sure there are a ton of other factors that have contributed to this sadly predominance of alt right thinking and hateful younger people not only in the anime comminuty but in the game community also.