The past week has been a very interesting one within the
games industry. The always prevalent gamer rage, hatred and backlash final took
a noticeable tool resulting in the cancelation of Fez II and the departure of
Phil Fish from the industry. It is sad that this has happened. Any exodus of
talent from any creative medium is a saddening event. However, it is not the
only moment example of gamer hatred getting the better of good people.
David Vonderhaar, a developer at Treyarch,
received multiple death threats and threats to his family when he revealed the
new patch notes for the latest Call of Duty: Black Ops II patch. Certain guns
were recalibrated to make the game over all more balanced. For this he was
scorned. The slander and threats rose to the point where Dan Amrich, Activision’s
community manager, wrote an editorial called
Stop
threatening game developers on his personal blog. This week has been a maelstrom
of hatred and anger rising from gamers.
Industry power houses such as Cliff Bleszinski and Ken
Levine have already made their opinions on this matter known. Levine takes a
more reserved approach neither criticizing nor supporting Fish’s departure. He merely
goes to say: “… for me, it's just part of the job at this part, but I don't
think it helps gaming.” Bleszinski takes
a more sided approach. In an open letter to Phil Fish he urges the developer
back into the industry. Bleszinski writes with a slightly juvenile tone, but
his shear charisma, fanaticism and belief in videogames is appealing. It is that combination of child-at-heart and
game-designer-in-brain from Bleszinski that produced this awesome paragraph:
“The other key is to absorb all of that hate into one big
fireball of motivation inside of your belly and then pour all of that energy
into your work until you can unleash one big giant motherfucking HADOKEN upon
the community that wins awards and sells millions and then the haters will
truly be eating a giant bushel of dicks as you roll in a pile of money,
acclaim, and community love.”
But, now I have done the recap of weekly news and there is
still so much to say. It is with that in mind that I, Steven – proprietor of
The Age of Gaming, open the first ever Age of Gaming Open Insult Forum. An
examination of slander form game players is necessary. It can go ignored no
longer. There is a massive problem that must be addressed. The best way to do
that is to open myself to it. So I put myself on the pedestal, get your rotten
fruit ready and take aim. This is going to hurt.
My tumblr has an ask box. It is open to anyone. Go ahead.
For those of you that read via my blogspot or want to leave longer messages
(ask box has a character limit) I give forth
my
email. Treat it wisely.
I want you, dear readers, to open up the hate and level ever
criticism at me you can muster. Warranted or not, I open myself to attack.
Examples must be made and slanderous hatred cannot be allowed to continue. In a week’s time I will write a response to
this, a capstone of the experiment. But for now, the time is for death threats.
Let the first ever Age of Gaming Open Insult Forum commence!
