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Agreed. Gamers also are among the most entitled users I've ever had to deal with. I'll never accept donations again for a game I've made available for free fro

Agreed. Gamers also are among the most entitled users I've ever had to deal with. I'll never accept donations again for a game I've made available for free from the amount of problems someone has caused me after they gave me $5.

trevyn 9y ago
Did you quickly offer/send a refund? This is going to be my strategy for upset customers, and I’m curious about people’s experiences with this approach.
- always_good 9y ago
  No, but it's not like they are privately emailing me with their complaints. They drum up threads in the subreddit and rally others to complain as if they are being personally wronged. I suppose I could offer a refund, but refunding a $5 donation is just another example of how a donation box is a waste of time. In the future I would at least consider a Patreon system where donations renew every month since server and development costs certainly do. Way too many people think they're buying an annuity against your free time with a one time donation/purchase.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
jjjensen90 9y ago
I never realized the level of feelings of entitlement and melodrama from gamers until I ran a passion project to make a private server for a dead game. We don't even accept donations and people still treat the dev team like dirt, and will often write nasty manifestos about how we are ruining their lives or we don't know what we are doing and if only we would listen to their every whim, etc... It's one of those things, though, that reveals the human inclination to remember negative events more even among a sea of positive events... Frequently as a game developer you will get loads of positive and helpful feedback but the small minority that want to shit on you for no good reason stick in the front of your mind.
- dleslie 9y ago
  Out of curiousity, what's the project?
  - jjjensen90 9y ago
    London 2038 https://london2038.com/ https://london2038.com/ It's a revival of the MMOARPG Hellgate: London which released in 2007, closed in 2009, was revived as a pay-to-win Korean reincarnation in 2011 and shut down again in 2015. Our version matches the version of the game from 2009.
    - dleslie 9y ago
      Hey, I've heard of this! Good work. :D One thing I notice from your site is that you provide _many_ ways of giving feedback. The Discord widget, the 'Contact Us' menu item, the FAQ is peppered with communication links, there's a Forum, Wiki, et al. Basically, I'm seeing an incredibly low barrier to entry for anyone wanting to express themselves to the developers. Have you considered paring that back? IE, ensuring all communication channels are moderated, and limiting it to only one or two services?
      - jjjensen90 9y ago
        Great feedback, I have actually done a lot to pare it down since we launched open alpha last Halloween. Typically people know now to make forum posts for long-term discussions and to come chat in Discord for quick back and forth. Nobody has actually used the contact form on the site, now that you mention it. My team of community manager volunteers is pretty active with moderation in-game and out-of-game so it's gotten pretty good. But still, I think I need to isolate myself and the other developers from the public, because it can be really demoralizing when you spend 30-40 hours of free time per week on a side project for free and you hear some terrible things.
        dleslie 9y ago
        Sounds like you've got a sound plan, and I whole-heartily endorse placing a barrier and filter between you and your fellow developers and the community at large. :)
dleslie 9y ago
Gamers aren't simply entitled; they can be aggressive, threatening and altogether horrible. I've personally received threats on my own life from users. There was a nice medium piece on it recently. [0] Anecdotally, I'm seeing more and more peers leave the industry as a result of being disgusted and worn down by the constant, unending abuse that game developers receive from users. 0: https://medium.com/@morganjaffit/the-cost-of-doing-business-c09cc5cc8728 https://medium.com/@morganjaffit/the-cost-of-doing-business-...
lsmarigo 9y ago
Couldn't agree more, I shut down my profit generating gaming project because of death threats, not worth.
Noos 9y ago
I think modern game devs create entitlement through games as service models that rely on unhealthy pve or player versus player content either real or implicit, and quickly force them into factions to compete for limited dev time. The games as service part prevents players from keeping proper emotional distance to games by not allowing them to have closure; to look at the game, say you've beaten it, and move on. Every game needs some kind of grind or persistence beyond the actual play, through online connectivity and often actual player competition. So you kind of prime players through negative play models very often, especially when in-game purchases exist. What's worse instead of an end to a game, devs are forced into chasing the mythical idea of balance instead. This actually sets players up into warring factions because balance is often zero sum; my warrior gets buffed at the expense of your paladin. There's no existing balance state, ever; you can look at Overwatch to see it just ending up into random changes to heroes that please and incense players in equal measure. These things combine to make players strung out over time; their nerves are jangled through constant grinding, death (screw roguelikes!), or competition, and then you end up with developer as God who made decide to alter everything to please a particular player faction, or even no one at all but themselves. You make your players invest a hundred hours in your game, and they aren't going to be disinterested enough to take changes in perspective; you don't give them the chance to be, they have to be logged on every day doing busywork either through ranking or grinding. I think this explains why modern gamers can be so enraged. It's more than personality; a lot of the structure of many modern games can really create this. The games make players too invested in them too easily, over too long a time.

trevyn 9y ago

Did you quickly offer/send a refund? This is going to be my strategy for upset customers, and I’m curious about people’s experiences with this approach.

always_good 9y ago
No, but it's not like they are privately emailing me with their complaints. They drum up threads in the subreddit and rally others to complain as if they are being personally wronged. I suppose I could offer a refund, but refunding a $5 donation is just another example of how a donation box is a waste of time. In the future I would at least consider a Patreon system where donations renew every month since server and development costs certainly do. Way too many people think they're buying an annuity against your free time with a one time donation/purchase.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

jjjensen90 9y ago

I never realized the level of feelings of entitlement and melodrama from gamers until I ran a passion project to make a private server for a dead game. We don't even accept donations and people still treat the dev team like dirt, and will often write nasty manifestos about how we are ruining their lives or we don't know what we are doing and if only we would listen to their every whim, etc... It's one of those things, though, that reveals the human inclination to remember negative events more even among a sea of positive events... Frequently as a game developer you will get loads of positive and helpful feedback but the small minority that want to shit on you for no good reason stick in the front of your mind.

dleslie 9y ago
Out of curiousity, what's the project?
- jjjensen90 9y ago
  London 2038 https://london2038.com/ https://london2038.com/ It's a revival of the MMOARPG Hellgate: London which released in 2007, closed in 2009, was revived as a pay-to-win Korean reincarnation in 2011 and shut down again in 2015. Our version matches the version of the game from 2009.
  - dleslie 9y ago
    Hey, I've heard of this! Good work. :D One thing I notice from your site is that you provide _many_ ways of giving feedback. The Discord widget, the 'Contact Us' menu item, the FAQ is peppered with communication links, there's a Forum, Wiki, et al. Basically, I'm seeing an incredibly low barrier to entry for anyone wanting to express themselves to the developers. Have you considered paring that back? IE, ensuring all communication channels are moderated, and limiting it to only one or two services?
    - jjjensen90 9y ago
      Great feedback, I have actually done a lot to pare it down since we launched open alpha last Halloween. Typically people know now to make forum posts for long-term discussions and to come chat in Discord for quick back and forth. Nobody has actually used the contact form on the site, now that you mention it. My team of community manager volunteers is pretty active with moderation in-game and out-of-game so it's gotten pretty good. But still, I think I need to isolate myself and the other developers from the public, because it can be really demoralizing when you spend 30-40 hours of free time per week on a side project for free and you hear some terrible things.
      - dleslie 9y ago
        Sounds like you've got a sound plan, and I whole-heartily endorse placing a barrier and filter between you and your fellow developers and the community at large. :)

dleslie 9y ago

Gamers aren't simply entitled; they can be aggressive, threatening and altogether horrible. I've personally received threats on my own life from users. There was a nice medium piece on it recently. [0] Anecdotally, I'm seeing more and more peers leave the industry as a result of being disgusted and worn down by the constant, unending abuse that game developers receive from users. 0: https://medium.com/@morganjaffit/the-cost-of-doing-business-c09cc5cc8728 https://medium.com/@morganjaffit/the-cost-of-doing-business-...

lsmarigo 9y ago

Couldn't agree more, I shut down my profit generating gaming project because of death threats, not worth.

Noos 9y ago

I think modern game devs create entitlement through games as service models that rely on unhealthy pve or player versus player content either real or implicit, and quickly force them into factions to compete for limited dev time. The games as service part prevents players from keeping proper emotional distance to games by not allowing them to have closure; to look at the game, say you've beaten it, and move on. Every game needs some kind of grind or persistence beyond the actual play, through online connectivity and often actual player competition. So you kind of prime players through negative play models very often, especially when in-game purchases exist. What's worse instead of an end to a game, devs are forced into chasing the mythical idea of balance instead. This actually sets players up into warring factions because balance is often zero sum; my warrior gets buffed at the expense of your paladin. There's no existing balance state, ever; you can look at Overwatch to see it just ending up into random changes to heroes that please and incense players in equal measure. These things combine to make players strung out over time; their nerves are jangled through constant grinding, death (screw roguelikes!), or competition, and then you end up with developer as God who made decide to alter everything to please a particular player faction, or even no one at all but themselves. You make your players invest a hundred hours in your game, and they aren't going to be disinterested enough to take changes in perspective; you don't give them the chance to be, they have to be logged on every day doing busywork either through ranking or grinding. I think this explains why modern gamers can be so enraged. It's more than personality; a lot of the structure of many modern games can really create this. The games make players too invested in them too easily, over too long a time.