Answering GDC’s 2023 survey, 78% of respondents said they considered the harassment and toxicity developers receive from the public to be a serious issue. A simple sentiment is often the most effective, and the title of Dragon Age veteran Mark Darrah’s latest video cuts right to the heart of it: “Your $70 doesn’t buy you cruelty.”
You don’t have to like a game, and you don’t have stay quiet if you have complaints, says Darrah. You’re entitled to be angry, and you’re entitled to express that anger. “If you are mad at that Ubisoft game, be mad at Ubisoft,” he says. “Express your anger to Ubisoft or the studio that made the game. But you cross a line when you start being cruel about it.” (Thanks, PC Gamer and GamesRadar)
Pah I ain’t spending no $70 on a game, lick my taint. If I spend $70 and it’s crap, then you get to hear it’s crap.
There’s a difference between being unhappy about a game and making your voice heard to the studio/publisher responsible, and singling out individuals who worked on the game to harass. This happens a lot with voice actors being targeted because people don’t like their performance, despite them just doing what the voice director told them to do.
There’s also a difference between saying “I don’t like ____” or “this game sucks” versus “I’m glad you got laid off, serves you right” or straight-up death threats. Just like the VAs, the development staff were working at the direction of the lead/director, who were possibly working at the direction of the publisher, so directing vitriol towards individuals is likely not productive, on top of being cruel. You are certainly allowed to make your opinion heard, but don’t be an asshole about it.
Yanno, that’s a fair line to have.
I think they make a valid point that there’s a difference between critique and criticism.
$70 is a lot to spend on a game for most people, so people want to feel they got their money’s worth, but you have to admit that the internet does have a bad habit of turning everything into hyperbole.
Still, a company with a multiple million dollar budget should be able to produce something truly amazing, especially when there’s indie devs and publishers that make truly memorable gems for what’s a comparatively shoestring budget.
If the big companies want to have more critiques and less criticism, perhaps they should start listening to players instead of producers.
NES games cost $60-$70 nearly 40 years ago. That would be like $150 if adjusted for inflation.
And if anything, the scale and cost of developing video games has skyrocketed since then…
Just something to consider…
Back when you also got a physical product with an instruction manual and possibly a poster or something else. Now we get a digital license that can be revoked and six months to a year of patching for it to be in a stable state. Yay!
Just something to consider…
He’s right, Cruelty is free. Get a refund for this dross and continue telling them they did a bad job.
If you can’t tell the difference between being upset that a game was made badly and being cruel to the developers, you may need to take a step back.
GAMERS ON THE WELL MANNERED PUPPY-GIRL ALPHA CHAD FEDERATED REDDIT ALTERNATIVE WHEN YOU BEG THEM NOT TO BE TOXIC TO THE DEVELOPER (THEY WILL DEFUSE THEIR SHITTINESS/THEY WILL NOT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY OR TAKE A TIRED DEVELOPER’S PLEAS GRACEFULLY)
GROW UP fuckers. The game sucks, I’ve played it. I’ve also been playing increasinly bad Dragon Age games long enough to know ITS EA, ITS ALWAYS BEEN EA. Everything they touch turns to shit. Veilguard was a live service team-based wave survival game like ME3 multiplayer until eight months before launch and you can reeeaaally tell.
I don’t give a fuck about blue haired devs, pronouns, none of that shit. If you do, grow up. Yes, Bioware is a skeleton crew with hack writers and a captain hired to go down with the ship and get the game out the door… BECAUSE OF EA.
ARE YOU JUST NOW PLAYING VIDEO GAMES FOR THE FIRST TIME? DID YOU NOT KNOW ABOUT THE PUBLISHERS IN GENERAL?
Gamergate’s still fucking going on. Bitching about Anita Sarkeesian in 2025 in response to a dev begging to stop being harassed, PATHETIC.
To be fair, the writing in this game is absolutely horrendous. Like “The Room” levels of bad.
It doesn’t matter how bad it was, it doesn’t justify or excuse the shithead behavior a lot of players are directing at individuals who worked on the game. As I stated in another comment, there’s a difference between saying “this game sucks” and personal attacks on individuals.
No. Not “fair”. You’re just justifying cruelty for the sake of cruelty.
A game doesnt have feelings, i can be cruel to it as much as i want. Being cruel to people is an issue tho i agree.
Looking at some of the comments make be lost faith in humanity… Or maybe social media is just destined to be toxic
