Comment by Mizza

5 years ago

Man, some of those replies on Twitter are unreasonably harsh to this guy. Being a game developer seems like a really thankless task. Why are so many game players so entitled and unfriendly?

> Why are so many game players so entitled and unfriendly?

Probably because they are the biggest group out there. Games are now bigger than movies, after all. The bigger the group, the more likely it is to contain a well-populated minority of viciously hateful people, a bit like "the bigger the country, the more likely it is that it will contain a sizeable group of hardcore nazis".

  • There's that, but also the fact that to these people games are "just games". Maybe the HN crowd is accustomed to dealing with professionals and business clients that use their software, so it looks jarring to see responses like in that Twitter thread.

    As a developer providing professional software, you're reasonably entitled to some respect from your customers, since your relationship is likely work related. But if you're making games, your product is eating up peoples' very valuable free time. If you mess that up for them, then you shouldn't be surprised to get a torrent of hate mail.

    • It is somewhat ironic that "work time", for which one gets paid, typically ends up perceived by individuals as "less valuable" than free time. It's one of many ways in which our societies are effectively broken.

I was pretty taken aback by that, they go way further than disappointing about not having the game on their platform of choice, to just outright yelling at the developer for somehow this being their fault?

  • Most of those people are children, or adult-children. Anyone else just doesn't care.

    I think this is just a case of very vocal minority.

    Who reasonable is exited about Stadia anyways? I don't think it will last till next year without being slashed by google.