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> The devs are somewhat hostile in this case.

You keep saying this, but they really aren't. At least as far as I can see from what's public. Communication is difficult, maybe give them the benefit of doubt? (And some peace and quiet)

To me, it sounds you're trying to make a huge issue out of this now, in the hopes it'll get things done quicker. Which is a horrible tactic. This isn't even about who's right or wrong. So far, it seems like nobody disagrees with your basic premise, just the timeframe.

Just look at your phrasing. "hostile in this case", "sort of hostile is the major concern", "which argument is right", "it's deciding if/who is at fault", "it's a question of ethics in the bigger picture". Until the say "No", this is all just overreacting.



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> The Pale Moon devs weren't super polite

The weren't super polite. In fact, they weren't polite at all. They were rude and demanding. I can't blame anyone for not wanting to collaborate with them after reading that thread. I wouldn't.


> So… Your response to why I’m wrong is that you’re going to change everything in the future?

Well, you got a reply from Come-from-Beyond who wrote the damn thing. You've got some attention from the developer and you couldn't handle your emotions, so I'm not sure what your angle is here. Do you mind if I ask, why didn't you engage them and evaluate your own understanding? Why did you resort to a snarky one liner?


> You're arguing in bad faith

Because I'm not throwing out low-effort "woe poor game developer" vibes and am instead expecting more? I've actually made effort to model how this could work, rather than exclaiming "this is going to ruin indie game developers!".

Bad faith is making unsubstantiated claims and then getting mad when asked to back it up.


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

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


> The truth is...

Yes, I know. That doesn't mean they get a free pass because of it.

> But they don't have to critically examine the game...

Yes, I know, but once again, that doesn't mean they get a free pass because of it.

Listen, you are giving them excuses. Excuses that are, frankly, wrong. They are a company with massive resources. They could have done this the right way. They decided not to. It's as simple as that.

They are wrong. They did wrong. End of story.


> Their best move is to acknowledge that they don't care and do so with pride. Everything else just feels at best insecure and at worst somewhat disrespectful towards devs who care.

You put your finger on exactly what felt wrong for me when I read their post.

They are just trying to find reason to justify their art, while they have none and simply don't care.

I'm not saying it's wrong that they don't care, it's alright, but doing this kind of post is disrespectful for people who cares.


> This doesn't indicate that the 3rd party developer is shit at all, not sure why you would assume such.

Perhaps don't leap to negative conclusions so abruptly.

You’re correct I completely took your words out of context and weaponized my frustration. I apologize.


> I'm sympathetic to the developer here.

I'm not. You don't get to unilaterally revoke a contract just because it turned out to be unprofitable or unfavorable to you.


> sounds /exactly/ like you're implying devs are going to start killing themselves because of abusive comments

And I maintain that. You seem to be missing my point.

> You're just pandering

Or maybe I'm just feeding a damn troll at this point. I'll stop.


> That looks a lot more like a genuine mistake by developers

Can we please stop handing "assume good faith" to megacorps? That's something you grant to individuals, not to companies whose entire existence revolves around doing nefarious things like this. There are no genuine mistakes, there are exclusively bad faith actions that should be coupled with company-funded third party investigation and public disclosure to determine impact along with varying levels of prosecution wherever possible to act as both punishment and deterrent even if it turns out to be a genuine mistake.


> I agree that putting developers on death marches is antithetical to everything that is human

You agree that this things are happening and its not OK.

why do you follow that up with:

> but it's not like you don't have options in this industry...

Clearly if people are being taken advantage of its an issue. And its issue for large enough percentage of workforce for us to talk about it.

Also this is global problem and salaries in game dev do not compare to SV. Well nothing compares to SV pay.


> the issue runs a little deeper imo.

Right, because the developers are "political"?


> The big issue here is that when you speak to players (and I have, a lot), a large number of them would agree with this statement “There are times when it’s reasonable to send personal abuse to a developer,” although they differ on when those times are.

Seems disingenuous. Without qualifying what those times are, it's logical that almost anyone would agree with that sentiment on some level. Did the developer take a drug-fueled sex tourism jaunt with your Kickstarter donation? Yeah that person probably deserves a little abuse.

> And what will happen when the best established developers and most talented up-and-comers decide that it’s not?

I think that gaming is probably the last industry that will suffer from something like this. There's always going to be a glut of people that want to work on games/in gaming.

I don't think this editorial really says anything. Some people on the Internet are loud assholes. Game developers put themselves on the Internet. Ergo, some people on the Internet are going to be loud assholes to game developers.

You can find someone complaining about anything:

https://twitter.com/search?q=%23applesucks&src=typd

https://twitter.com/search?q=%23nycsucks&src=typd

https://twitter.com/search?q=%23berniesucks&src=typd

https://twitter.com/search?q=%23catssuck&src=typd

https://twitter.com/search?q=%23rainbowssuck&src=typd

This has been a problem for decades, and probably ages before that:

https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19

Loud, angry, vocal minorities tend to drown out the majority. If you can't ignore that, you'll never succeed.


> I doubt the devs did anything

The best course of action was to do nothing, given they couldn't talk about it if they were served. Walking away was the only option.

This is pure speculation. Logical, but still speculation.


> They're only doing this because of the community reaction/outrage.

Well duh. If the community was delighted about it or didn't care then was it really a bad thing? What do you expect a company to do, get everything right the first time no matter what, or suffer punishment? It seems they're damned if they do and damned if they don't.


>That’s not what people here are generally saying,

You must be completely ignoring the multiple comments here, not to mention the comments in every preceding thread on HN, not to mention the comments on reddit about this game. Because that is what many are saying.

Ironically, this is the same situation as the bugs in the game: just because you're oblivious to the numerous people saying the game isn't buggy doesn't mean there aren't people saying the game isn't buggy.

>It just sounds like you want to argue/be upset.

Who's upset? I've said multiple times that I'm enjoying the game. It seems like you're the one trying to pick a fight for some reason.


> However, they have also been subject to profoundly unreasonable – even unhinged – criticism, and this has created a rather unhealthy dynamic where both reasonable and unreasonable criticism are all treated the same by the developers. You kind of need to insulate yourself to some degree.

If you need to insulate yourself to the degree that you ban someone for answering the question “V or Go?” with “Go, obviously”[1] then what’s the point of even maintaining a community? All you’ll end up with is a bunch of yes-women.

[1] Is V production-ready?—no. Is Go? Yes, for a long time.


> But not strongly enough, apparently, to get that statement any higher than the fourth paragraph of your comment. Which tells me you're more interesting in flogging the bad game and its developers than you are in instances of actual, real-world harrassment.

You're making a big reach there. The parent comment is responding to the article, which is towing the developer line that the release wasn't that bad, they hit their expectations, it was just stuff like missing butterflies - none of which is true. The harassment issue is a problem, but I see nothing wrong with a comment correcting core problems with the article first.


> Immediately writing a public blog post is not negotiating in good faith.

Yet this seems to have been quite effective, given that the head of Developer Relations at Twitter is replying to this story on HN..

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