This article originally ran under a different banner/website in August of 2019 and is now being here re-uploaded for purposes of convenience and consolidation. Please enjoy.
HEAR YE!!! HEAR YE!!! LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!!! IT IS TIME TO HAVE A SERIOUS CONVERSATION. Before we commence this parley, I, the Video Game Doomsayer, want to address the fact that the people I am talking about are a small minority. A very minuscule group of people. Passionate people who need this heart to heart. There is a strong chance that you are not a member of this group, but I urge you to heed my message. So please set aside your torches and pitchforks. Take a seat with a calming cup of tea and let’s have a discussion about online harassment.
At the end of July, a small indie studio Glumberland, announced their game, Ooblets, would become an Epic Game Store exclusive. While the announcement tried to cheerfully play off the exclusivity as no big deal, it felt a little tone-deaf with comments like we should be mad at climate change rather than Epic store exclusivity:
“I get the appeal of wanting to seek out things to get angry about. Venting anger is cathartic and natural, but let’s have just a little perspective about what we decide to get angry about. Look at the things going on around you and ask yourself if there might be anything just a tad more worthwhile to be upset about.
Here are just a few suggestions:
- Climate change
- Human rights abuses
- The new Twitter desktop UI
- The last season of Game of Thrones
(Those last two were jokes, please don’t yell at people about them)”
-Ooblets developers
While I don’t blame indie developers for taking a deal that gives them a better revenue split and visibility, unless you kickstarted with the promise of Steam keys, I can’t say this was the best way to announce the deal. As I clenched my teeth and sucked in the air as I read the post, I had a feeling the internet rage would bubble over, but I underestimated them. Less than a week after the announcement, the small studio received a tidal wave of vile comments. Following the backlash, Epic announced it would be working with studios to combat the unhealthy public discourse. Glumberland is still planning to make Ooblets an Epic Games store exclusive.
Around the same time, MachineGames lead level designer, Mita Roskaric had to lock his Twitter account to follow some harassment. Some Wolfenstein fans were not pleased with Wolfenstein: Youngblood and its microtransactions. To exhaust their immanent rage they decided to dogpile on the level designer. Little to these troll’s understanding, Roskaric’s level design role doesn’t allow him to make the decision on if microtransactions should be in the game. Essentially, attacking Roskaric on Twitter is like protesting coal mining by punching a random coal miner. Even following the harassment, there have been no plans to remove the microtransactions from Wolfenstein: Youngbloods.
The new season of Apex Legends began with controversy as many fans weren’t please over the season’s cosmetics. In order to unlock the cosmetic, Raven’s Bite, one had to purchase all twenty-four event-specific cosmetics, which were also locked behind loot boxes. It was calculated that you had to spend over $200 to just unlock a skin for a weapon on one character. Respawn Entertainment released an apology post, one that we all have heard from other studios and are growing tired of:
“With Apex Legends it is very important to us that we don’t sell a competitive advantage. Our goal has not been to squeeze every last dime out of our players, and we have structured the game so that all players benefit from those who choose to spend money – events like Legendary Hunt or Iron Crown exist so that we can continue to invest in creating more free content for all players. This week has been a huge learning experience for us and we’re taking the lessons forward to continue bringing the best possible experience to all of you.”
-Drew McCoy, Respawn Entertainment
Fans hastily took to forums and Reddit to express their frustration. Some were respectful and others were not. It clearly began to frustrate the Respawn developers, causing them to break down and say players were ass-hats, dicks, and freeloaders. It got so hostile, Respawn Entertainment CEO, Vince Zampella, had to issue an apology to the Apex Legends community. Respawn still plans on keeping the requirements to obtain Raven’s Bite as it is.
MY LOYAL FOLLOWERS!!! I AM HERE TO SAY: I GET IT. I understand the frustration of Epic continuing to snatch up exclusives in the attempt to usurp the PC gaming market. I understand being sick of traditional single-player games being broken and twisted into live services games. I understand the outrage of games trying to sell a two-hundred-dollar ax cosmetic. I certainly can’t throw stones in my glasshouse, as I used a whole review of a kid’s kart game to rail against live services and microtransactions. However, my loyal followers, the method of blindly lashing out at any random developers will not yield the results you want.
It has become too easy for sincere criticism to become overshadowed by mudslinging and name-calling. I wouldn’t be shocked if there was respectful criticism leveled at Ooblets’s exclusivity announcement, Wolfenstein: Youngblood’s microtransactions, or how Respawn was handling the new season in Apex Legends. Do any of these criticisms receive any media coverage or response from the developers? No, there are too busy defending themselves on decisions they probably had little to no choice on. As a result, we all get painted with a large brush saying gamers are entitled and spoiled. Nothing changes, the game industry slowly marches towards greed over substance and the cycle continues.
My loyal followers, I am reminded of the comedy saying from Finley Peter Dunne: Comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable. The phrase has evolved into always punch up, never down, but the meaning remains the same. The idea behind it is you don’t attack people who are lower on the totem pole. A joke mocking someone struggling to make ends meet just comes off cruel. The same goes for attacking random developers on Twitter. A lead-level designer is not making the call to add microtransactions to Wolfenstein: Youngblood. That is a decision made by the CEO and executives ruling over Bethesda. The dragons sitting atop their gold, demanding more from the small villagers of developers they rule over. These villagers have no choice but to comply, as one who doesn’t have their villages burnt down by the imposing dragons. Just look at what the EA dragons did to Visceral Games.
While I don’t claim to be perfect, I often try to aim my righteous fury, not at these almost helpless developers working to keep the lights on, but the executives at the top who float down these calls for microtransactions like they are marching orders from their Doom fortress. Recall my review of Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled. I never once placed any blame for microtransactions being smuggled in months after launch at the developers, Beenox. I made it clear that this mess squarely belongs to Activision. Like a proud dog carrying the corpse of my latest kill, I did not want to lay this mess in front of the children’s studios, but the master of this house, Bobby Kotick. It is his mess after all, not Beenox’s. I punched up at Activision instead of punching down at Beenox.
The point behind this rambling of a madman is I think the criticism leveled at the games industry is very much needed, but attacking developers is not how we make change happen. Cast back to 2017, when EA tried to milk the Star Wars fan base with loot boxes in Star Wars: Battlefront II. Fans refused to stay silent making sure everyone knew about this predatory monetization. We created so much noise non-gaming journalists and politicians got involved. We made the subject so hot, EA had to remove the loot boxes. During this time, I don’t recall a single article outlining any hate speech aimed at developer EA DICE. Sure we mocked the pride and accomplishment Reddit post, but we were punching up at EA not down at EA DICE. Folks, we can make our voices heard. We need to make our voices heard and not let them be drowned out by hateful unproductive rhetoric. We must aim our punch high and avoid cheap and dirty shots at developers in the trenches. We must be better, or I fear the end of the games industry is nigh.
Sources:
Handrahan, Matthew.“Ooblets Dev Received Thousands of ‘Hateful, Threatening Messages’ over Epic Exclusivity.” GamesIndustry.biz, https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-08-05-ooblets-dev-received-thousands-of-hateful-threatening-messages-over-epic-exclusivity.
Kain, Erik. “Respawn CEO Apologizes For ‘Apex Legends’ Reddit Fiasco.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 20 Aug. 2019, https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2019/08/20/respawn-ceo-apologizes-for-apex-legends-reddit-fiasco/#1cc58f35f06c.
Kobek, Patrick. “Wolfenstein: Youngblood Dev Leaves Twitter Over Microtransaction Harassment.” TheGamer, TheGamer, 6 Aug. 2019, https://www.thegamer.com/wolfenstein-developer-leaves-twitter-microtransactions/.