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Cities: Skylines 2 developers have noticed 'a growing tendency of toxicity in our community' (www.techradar.com)

submitted 9 months ago by AnActOfCreation@programming.dev to c/games@lemmy.world

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Developers of Cities: Skylines 2 have noticed a growing toxicity in their community, which is affecting engagement and creativity.
The CEO of Colossal Order expressed concern about the negative impact of toxicity on the team and the community.
The developers still encourage helpful criticism from the community but ask for it to be constructive and kind.

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[-] all-knight-party@kbin.run 7 points 9 months ago

I wouldn't say consumers deserve that burden, but we have it because there's no governmental regulation of moral marketing practices. If we can legally move towards that somehow, then hell yeah, but I'll be honest that I'm too lazy and/or legally inept to do that myself.

I'm not saying it should be the customer's problem, but as humans that are great at learning pattern recognition it can help us avoid misery and wasting our money, and I wouldn't also say that people should do that willy nilly just because ideally you'd be able to trust marketing. You can't. It's just the only way to cope with this messed up system in its current state.

[-] Cypher@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago

So… blame the system? The devs are the antagonists in this system and the only ones with the power to stop pushing out broken garbage and marketing based on lies.

Blaming the victims won’t change the system.

There will always be people unfamiliar with the pitfalls of the system. Always fresh victims to part from their money.

So I blame the company because the company is the system. I blame the scammers because they are the system.

Oh and regulations don’t even slow down scammers of any kind. They already know they’re breaking the rules, breaking laws is just the next logical step.

A step companies are all too willing to take because the punishments cost less than they’ll profit.

I do not blame people for being fooled… because there’s always a scam good enough to fool even me. And I’m smart.

[-] all-knight-party@kbin.run 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Well, you're correct on where the fault rests as long as the lies were willingly made, but in the scenario we're originally talking about the ultimate result you're ending up with is... Being an asshole. So, in this total fucked system of manipulation and marketing lies the justice you're pushing for is being an asshole on a forum. I don't really think that solves anything or justifies itself.

Don't think that I'm arguing that the company should get a free pass for any of this or that the company isn't at fault/isn't the system, the root of what I'm saying is that toxicity isn't really warranted when it's about buying a videogame that wasn't made well and didn't meet marketing expectations, and if you want to avoid being in a situation where you got burned buying a product that didn't meet your expectations, you can establish expectations closer to reality by doing smart research that is absolutely everywhere and easily obtained for free post-release. Being an asshole to a developer as a whole targets people that fundementally aren't at fault, which is what allows companies to pull the whole "people don't feel safe" card when public relations toxicity gets out of hand. A small part of that can be true, and doesn't help our case.

Some people will fall for it, yes, and awareness helps reach people that aren't going out of their way to research what they're buying, but you can raise awareness and make a scene about this stuff in a mature fashion. I'm in no way saying we shouldn't make a stink about situations like this, it's how you do it.

[-] Cypher@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

See I still disagree; Im Australian and we measure a lot of things (social, political) by what we call the pub test.

If you can’t convince people in a pub that something is a good idea then it doesn’t pass the political pub test.

The social pub test is similar, it’s where if doing something in a pub would cause another patron to throw you a beating it fails the pub test.

If you rip someone off for $60 to $120 in a pub and they realise they will punch your head in.

Mean comments are an entirely reasonable if somewhat juvenile response to being lied to and ripped off.

Devs acting like victims because people said mean things after they lied to and ripped those people off is ridiculous.

They should grow a thicker skin or get out of the game of scamming people.

[-] all-knight-party@kbin.run 2 points 9 months ago

While I don't think that being an asshole about something is a reasonable response, I find it a very understandable response, especially about subjects like this. Regardless of how "turn the other cheek" I happen to be personally, the issues surrounding video game marketing are pretty large, and this sort of cycle of selling a product that doesn't match its marketed features and level of polish happens far more than it should.

The only thing I feel bad about when it comes to agreeing with your outlook is that there totally are developers who technically work for the parent company receiving toxicity, but had nothing to do with deciding how polished the game could be at release, what top level features the game could receive, or how the game could be marketed, but still end up receiving toxicity for the state of the game because they still are the devs, and if you go down the path of "getting out of the game" when it comes to those people, they may not have ever known it would end up that way when they took the job, or they may need that job to survive.

That grey area is the one part that gives me pause, and it's the reason I think companies at large pull that card, because you can never prove that the public isn't hurting innocents, and even though you could look at a case like this, establish that you can't see any toxicity or death threats in forums, and decide that the company is lying about toxicity existing at all, they may have deleted those posts, continuing to muddy the waters.

It's just a fucked up situation all round and there's no black and white answer to it, for me. I think being a manager at my job has hard taught me that sinking to someone's level when it comes to emotional response is absolutely never a good idea, and that's bled out to other areas of my life, but I can understand your outlook and agree to disagree on how we'd react to this situation individually.