Dowse adds that “99.9% of our community are the absolute best and it’s because of them— thankfully—that my community team perseveres. But I suppose it was inevitable that when you have a city, a few bad eggs will start a fire.”
“It’s a double-edged sword that comes with this kind of approach—especially with a game that’s this popular. Developers gain a lot by listening closely to feedback, talking with their players, and putting a face to their names on social media. On the other hand, they also open themselves up to the masses at large. While only a small portion of said masses are nasty, the law of large numbers kicks in very quickly: 0.5% of a million people is still 5,000 angry strangers yelling at you.”
Even if 99.99% of the community is amazing, that still leaves at least 1,000 people who are still willing to do/say terrible things to the developers.
There’s always a fine line between acknowledging the threat or ignoring it. In online situations, I do agree that ignoring the threat is the best cause of action because it’s difficult for anybody to take real action.
If a person gives a death threat on a forum, for example, then ban the account. If you feel that it has real life consequences, then report it to the police when needed. But would you really want to make a post talking about how you feel about the death threat and why you ban the account?
But then, I believe this is a PR move to show that they care about the employee, and to encourage good customers to show their gratitude to the devs. Perhaps the devs are really on the brink of collapse, mentally, so a little support would be helpful.
They do address that in the article though.
Even if 99.99% of the community is amazing, that still leaves at least 1,000 people who are still willing to do/say terrible things to the developers.
Right… 0.1%… So ignore them instead of letting them trigger the whole company
Making announcements just gives those idiots a voice they would not otherwise have
Spoken like somebody who’s never received a death threat before
That’s like 10 people per dev harrassing the team. It’s a huge number. You can’t really “ignore” them.
Or we could just not normalize sending death threats over the Internet? Don’t really get why there’s an issue with that
There’s always a fine line between acknowledging the threat or ignoring it. In online situations, I do agree that ignoring the threat is the best cause of action because it’s difficult for anybody to take real action.
If a person gives a death threat on a forum, for example, then ban the account. If you feel that it has real life consequences, then report it to the police when needed. But would you really want to make a post talking about how you feel about the death threat and why you ban the account?
But then, I believe this is a PR move to show that they care about the employee, and to encourage good customers to show their gratitude to the devs. Perhaps the devs are really on the brink of collapse, mentally, so a little support would be helpful.