[jancsika]

Do all game devs experience similar types of abuse, or only the devs of games with environments in which the developer's company is attempting to monetize the player as they move through the game?

For example-- there is some beautiful sidescroller game I've seen where the animation looks like old-school Fleischer studio cartoons. Do devs of games like that get abuse from players, too?

[justinpombrio]

Yes - look at the tweets in the article. I've played Don't Starve Together and Terraria, and neither of them have any in-game monetization. Those are also both family-friendly games. Don't Starve has a cartoony art style, too.

I can't speak for the other games. Strangely, the tweets don't either. They're not like "I am angry about this particular feature", they're like <word salad of swear words>.

[Mithaldu]

Terraria (178k followers) and Don't Starve (63k followers) get this stuff because they have the kind of playerbase size that makes people feel like the devs won't ever see their message anyhow. They tried to ask for stuff, or saw others try and didn't even see evidence that the devs saw the question. So they figure it's fine to just yell at the ocean.

[dorkwood]

The first tweet they link to is directed at the makers of 'Firewatch', which doesn't have any in-app purchases at all.

http://www.firewatchgame.com/

If Firewatch isn't safe, I'm not sure anything is.

[guildwriter]

The Firewatch devs took a public stand on the Pewdiepie drama and got hit in the head as a result. It went far beyond Twitter harassment and their Steam reviews got bombarded with negative reviews. The hate campaign they got has nothing to do with their development or business practices.

[Relys]

Thanks for providing some context. I don't know what they expected getting involved in YouTube drama (which is essentially like pissing in a sea of piss).

[abiox]

> took a public stand

it was also a declaration to "dmca takedown" his content even though permission have very explicitly been given. (this seems like it could be legally problematic, but not sure)... also publicly called for other game developers to participate in similar actions. seemed like some questionable ethics.

[m00g00]

No idea, but there was a bunch of articles and probably related tweets accusing this game developer of racism because of the era their animation style is an homage to.

I'm very much tired of articles whose sole basis for existing is random fucking tweets. You can always find bad ones, from every sect of society. Deranged scribblings on walls did not used to be worthy of news articles.

[itronitron]

> old-school Fleischer studio cartoons...

Sounds like the game you are referring to is Cuphead in which case I am pretty sure the devs for that game are getting plenty of abuse from players.

[Sohcahtoa82]

> there is some beautiful sidescroller game I've seen where the animation looks like old-school Fleischer studio cartoons. Do devs of games like that get abuse from players, too?

You're probably talking about Cuphead. Yes, the devs have gotten an enormous amount of abuse from that game.

[JasonSage]

> Do devs of games like that get abuse from players, too?

Yes, without a doubt. It's a huge problem.

[kec]

Several of the devs tweeted at in the article (camposanto and klei at the very least) are being tweeted at over games which have traditional (ie non microtransaction based) business models.

[DanBC]

Let's assume for the moment that players only send abuse to devs who excessively monetize games (but you're wrong about that): it's still wrong. It's still not acceptable to tell someone that they should die in a fire.

[tehwebguy]

Check out Fez