Alarming article from Polygon (let's be good to our devs, okay?)

[dr_jt]

sadly, it's far worse than the (relatively small) number of death threats and other threats of physical violence against devs and their loved ones and corporate assets.

It's the constant flood of hate mongering posts, usually just rants filled with lies, disinformation, and gross exaggerations that cause devs to become disillusioned, potential customers to start doubting the quality of a good product and fail to buy it for all the wrong reasons, and the user community to become polarised.

Very true and if you ever go over to the Orbitersim forums you will see people, many who complain, say that if you do mods for praise then you are in the wrong business. Personally I think they are jerks for such and attitude.

Speaking of other forums. Did you hang out at the Microsoft Flight section of AVSIM? I recognize the duck. I got banned from AVSIM because I told the FSX people that were trashing people like me that liked Flight to take a hike and leave us alone. Tom didn't take kindly to me back talking his fan base and sent me a scathing PM and then had one of the mods ban me.

[Apollo13]

Been there and doing that for 35 years. Heck, I use to code COBOL. I was a very well to do software designer and manager right up until I lost my job because the company got bought out and they canned all higher level positions. Just try to get a job in a bad market at the age of 55. I ran through my savings and retirement and finally got a job after 4 years as a low to mid level level C# programmer with pretty much no chance of advancement and now I find people want a 60 old even less then they want a 55 year old. Heck, I only got hired because my boss is married to an Mech Engineer that lost his job at 58 and never got another one. I think she felt bad for me. The down side is I'll most likely die at my desk as a 70 year old low level C# programmer because unless I win the lotto I'll never build up enough to retire.

I was laid-off as an IT Project Manager in 2002; same time as stock market crash (that killed retirement savings). I sent out over 1400 targeted resumes (developer, project manager, mid-level manager) for jobs that I fully qualified for. Six phone interviews. A couple in-person interviews. Nada. My last gig, not even IT, was for two years because my boss just wanted to help me; I was in the marketing department dong nothing. Try finding a job, other than Walmart greeter, at 61 years old.

[TouhouTorpedo]

I really just cannot believe that anyone of a reasonable and friendly mindset would have anything to sincerely complain about this game at this point. I call BS. Some people just like to troll, esp. if everybody else going over the bridge is a nice guy/gal.

It seems you did not read any of my posts then, which state issues with the game and communication, and suggest ways to improve and fix some of those.

Thinking anyone who has anything to complain about is just trolling is a ridiculous mindset to have and detrimental to the games development.

[roosterr]

You cant proof your point by making things up.

Might you read the Steam-Description.

Also he guaranteed you something - the final car. There are lots of posts by developers that point out features they want to add to the game and where they want to go. Which is what people pay for - the idea they believe in.

So with this reasoning anythign is okay as long as the other party either doesnt know better or is easy to please?

Im sorry to have to break it to you but law heavly regulates what will be part of a contract. Many people seem to take this way to lightly which is why it is only a matter of time for the first big problems with things like crowd-sourcing etc.

Oh cool, a good old fashioned flame war, how fun!

Making things up? I hate to break the news to YOU! Here is the sales pitch I read when I bought from SQUAD:

"The game is currently under heavy development. This means the game will be improved on a regular basis, so be sure to check back for new updates. Right now, KSP is in Sandbox Complete state, but we want you to try it out and have fun with it. The Demo version is free to download and play, and will remain so forever. The KSP Team is strongly commited to the project, and we are always listening for feedback from the players.

If you have any questions, comments and ideas, please contact us, or join us on the Forums."

AND FROM STEAM:

"What the developers say:

“KSP is still under development. This means the game will be improved on a regular basis, through updates that add new features, content and bug fixes, so make sure to check back for new versions.

The game is being built as a sandbox first, so there are no objectives yet, but we want you to try it out and have fun with it already. You're free to build anything you can think of, and there is an entire Solar System to explore.

During development, KSP is available for purchase at a discounted price, which will gradually increase up to its final retail price as the game nears completion. So by ordering now, you get the game in its current state, and you'll get all future updates for free.â€Â"

REPEAT: "So by ordering now, you get the game in its current state, and you'll get all future updates for free.â€Â"

I dont see anything in there at that says "You will love the final product" or "We plan to have feature X implemented and working at such and such time", or anything like that. If you read the EULA (the "contract") as the sales pitch, go ahead an lawyer up and state your case if you feel you have been somehow cheated out of your money. Otherwise, its time to put your big boy pants on and move on if you are not satisfied with a very inexpensive product that has more than satisfied thousands.

Good day sir!

Edited August 23, 2013 by roosterr

[jwenting]

Very true and if you ever go over to the Orbitersim forums you will see people, many who complain, say that if you do mods for praise then you are in the wrong business. Personally I think they are jerks for such and attitude.

Speaking of other forums. Did you hang out at the Microsoft Flight section of AVSIM? I recognize the duck. I got banned from AVSIM because I told the FSX people that were trashing people like me that liked Flight to take a hike and leave us alone. Tom didn't take kindly to me back talking his fan base and sent me a scathing PM and then had one of the mods ban me.

And people in the Flight forum were trashing the MSFS users just as bad and taking flak for that. No doubt you were trashing FS users in the FS forum just "to get even".

Yes, it was that kind of a forum at times and sometimes the mods were slow acting to stop it.

But that's not what's at issue here, it's kids trashing the devs, to the point of sending them death threats. Which happened with the MSFS team at times, got so bad in fact that they had to install special filters on not just their email addresses but their phonelines to prevent them from being bombarded with trash talk 24/7.

That was in small part disgruntled MSFS users who's pet feature didn't get implemented as perfectly as they'd hoped it would be, but in far larger part Flight and especially X-Plane users who thought to gain more customers (and thus more addons and more budget for the dev team) for their favourite product by trashing FS and the MSFS team to desperation so they'd quit.

Took 20 years, but they succeeded too (though the official reason given was that MS considered the investment not worth the small return, in part caused by that trash talk).

[KevinTMC]

Good grief, Apollo13 and dr_jt...I knew times were still tough, but I'd thought the IT field still had more promise than that.

I'd been looking a bit longingly at it, as a matter of fact, from the perspective of a household where we have one underemployed lawyer whose legal career never even got started, and one accomplished, veteran teacher who is having trouble even finding subbing gigs anymore. (You know times are tough when teachers can't even afford to take sick days when they're sick.)

[Bothersome]

If you read the EULA (the "contract") as the sales pitch, go ahead an lawyer up and state your case if you feel you have been somehow cheated out of your money. Otherwise, its time to put your big boy pants on and move on if you are not satisfied with a very inexpensive product that has more than satisfied thousands

That EULA don't mean squat. I'm not trying to make an attack on you or anyone else, let me explain what I mean. I basically agree with all you said, but, there is a new avenue that can be done by the purchaser...

If company XYZ decides to use the internet for quick and easy dispersal of information to sell their product for monetary gain,... This is opens them up for an attack vector by the consumer. Why is the EULA no good? Because the consumer knows that to fight it in court would cost way more than the financial gain. So it's never going into court, therefore the EULA is never going to be used. But the consumer feels cheated and they already paid their money. So to get back at the vendor/provider they attack their new money revenue stream. Make them lose thousands for cheating the consumer. It's now possible because the company chose to use the internet to help sell their product, the internet can also be used by the consumer to disperse negative information. The company might not like it, but it would cost them thousands to fight it and it would have to be proved that what the consumer is saying negatively about them was actually not true before they could win any damages. So as you can see, the consumers do have an avenue of "fighting back". You cannot expect the consumer to just walk away from their money they already paid for the product. The consumer does have recourse, and some will hold the company to the fire. This helps every consumer of all products because it makes companies a little more aware that they cannot just "take the money and run".

I'm not pointing this at Squad, they have done a fantastic job so far. But the consumer goes by what was said to sell them the product. If it was different on Squad's web site than on Steam, then, I guess they got different "contracts" the consumers expect of them.

[roosterr]

That EULA don't mean squat. I'm not trying to make an attack on you or anyone else, let me explain what I mean. I basically agree with all you said, but, there is a new avenue that can be done by the purchaser...

If company XYZ decides to use the internet for quick and easy dispersal of information to sell their product for monetary gain,... This is opens them up for an attack vector by the consumer. Why is the EULA no good? Because the consumer knows that to fight it in court would cost way more than the financial gain. So it's never going into court, therefore the EULA is never going to be used. But the consumer feels cheated and they already paid their money. So to get back at the vendor/provider they attack their new money revenue stream. Make them lose thousands for cheating the consumer. It's now possible because the company chose to use the internet to help sell their product, the internet can also be used by the consumer to disperse negative information. The company might not like it, but it would cost them thousands to fight it and it would have to be proved that what the consumer is saying negatively about them was actually not true before they could win any damages. So as you can see, the consumers do have an avenue of "fighting back". You cannot expect the consumer to just walk away from their money they already paid for the product. The consumer does have recourse, and some will hold the company to the fire. This helps every consumer of all products because it makes companies a little more aware that they cannot just "take the money and run".

I'm not pointing this at Squad, they have done a fantastic job so far. But the consumer goes by what was said to sell them the product. If it was different on Squad's web site than on Steam, then, I guess they got different "contracts" the consumers expect of them.

I agree with what you said also. My point that the guy was equating the "contract" as the sales pitch. I posted the sales pitch for him. I have never even read the EULA, but it is NOT the sales pitch.

[Levelord]

There is nothing alarming about the article at all. Games these days are being marketed to a younger and by nature, less mature audience. Of course you are going to receive a stupendous amount of death threats from a fanbase made out of teenagers.

The thing is to note, is that gamers lack the discipline to even carry out basic threats to boycott a game. What in the world makes anyone think that they are capable of lifting a finger to act on an actual death threat? I've not heard of a single incident of anyone making a death threat to a game developer and eventually turning up on their doorstep to shoot/punch them.

To me it's a case of developers these days having extremely thin skin and not knowing how to handle very obvious empty immature threats from a generation of gamers that can't articulate what the main problem of the game is. So they resort to empty threats to scare developers to have their way instead of actually reasoning out the issue.

Really, as long as nobody is getting physically harmed the only damage to the developers that comes from this is to their ego, which they should be expected to handle professionally by ignoring the (ultimately empty) death threats. If game devs want to market games that target teenagers and the lowest common denominator of people to sell the most copies of a game, they have to expect conduct from the lowest common denominator fans too.

[KevinTMC]

Of course you are going to receive a stupendous amount of death threats from a fanbase made out of teenagers.

Maybe I'm just getting old, but that right there is plenty alarming and shocking to me.

[SkyHook]

I finally got through all 11 pages of this thread! I think that bullying from behind a computer is pretty cowardly, and not that serious. There are many points that I could respond to in this post, but I will simply give my reaction to the KSP community:

1. The KSP community is amazing. It really is. Most discussions are conducted in peace, and most people that are a part of the community are respectful, and intelligent.

2. The KSP community is VERY protective of the Devs. They will come to Harv's or any other dev's defense at the first sign of criticism. While is is well-intentioned, I think that lack of criticism is a fault of the community.

3. I really hope that the devs aren't discouraged by us! I can only imagine the heights that this game will reach with continued development. With that being said, criticism needs to reach the devs, lest they alienate their community.

[dr_jt]

No doubt you were trashing FS users in the FS forum just "to get even"..

Nope. Got me wrong there. I never ever went into the FSX forum and trash talked FSX or the users. You see, I play all kinds of sims and currently have in addition to KSP, I have FSX, FS9, XP9, MS Flight and Orbitersim loaded up. All I did was to tell the FSX people that didn't like Flight to stop posting the trash talk and hate in the the Flight forum and to leave the Flight forum people alone. I don't trash talk any game or users because I have better things to do.

Edited August 23, 2013 by dr_jt

[SpaceHole]

Oh cool, a good old fashioned flame war, how fun!

Making things up? I hate to break the news to YOU! Here is the sales pitch I read when I bought from SQUAD:

AND FROM STEAM:

"What the developers say:

“KSP is still under development. This means the game will be improved on a regular basis, through updates that add new features, content and bug fixes, so make sure to check back for new versions.

The game is being built as a sandbox first, so there are no objectives yet, but we want you to try it out and have fun with it already. You're free to build anything you can think of, and there is an entire Solar System to explore.

During development, KSP is available for purchase at a discounted price, which will gradually increase up to its final retail price as the game nears completion. So by ordering now, you get the game in its current state, and you'll get all future updates for free.â€Â"

REPEAT: "So by ordering now, you get the game in its current state, and you'll get all future updates for free.â€Â"

I dont see anything in there at that says "You will love the final product" or "We plan to have feature X implemented and working at such and such time", or anything like that. If you read the EULA (the "contract") as the sales pitch, go ahead an lawyer up and state your case if you feel you have been somehow cheated out of your money. Otherwise, its time to put your big boy pants on and move on if you are not satisfied with a very inexpensive product that has more than satisfied thousands.

Good day sir!

It seems you have missed 2 points "Early Access Game" - Early Access to a "Game".

Also contracts like this with consumers will most likely be interpreted in the consumers interrest. Also marketing will actually work against the developers - especially those things said on the site about planned features etc.

I still dont understand what you want?

"by ordering now you get the game in its current state and all future updates"

thats pretty logical considering its a alpha that will be patched i dont see how this proofs your point.

Also as others pointed out EULAS that are not refered to when you buy the game - like in this case on steam - will not become part of the contract. Not to mention that there are quite a few limitations to what EULAs etc. can do.

The funny part is i really dont understand what you want from me - i am talking in a general sense and about fictive scenarios - but it seems as if you assume that i dislike the game - which is odd.

It seems as if you are desperately trying to attack me because you assume i dislike the game. Which is pretty much the opposite direction of the the problem. There are people that will try to harass developers and there will be extreme-fans that will actually try to attack anyone who dislikes the game. (you seem to be one of them (but one of those who are pretty moderate - dont get me wrong here (you are alomst at normal level ))

Edited August 23, 2013 by SpaceHole

[SpaceHole]

I agree with what you said also. My point that the guy was equating the "contract" as the sales pitch. I posted the sales pitch for him. I have never even read the EULA, but it is NOT the sales pitch.

Sorry but you cant differentiate that easily.

For example - if a company A produces Product XY. Company A says XY can do ZZ.

Vendor B just sells the product XY. Consumer C actually refere to the thing company A said.

Anyhow this will lead nowhere since law is pretty different depending on where you live. And i probably should say that i have no idea how law works in other countries but i am pretty sure that it will be rather similar at least in most countries of the european union.

Still i dont understand why you are constantly trying to attack me as i mentioned above.

Also no an EULA ist most of the time meant to be part of the "Sales-Pitch".

Edited August 23, 2013 by SpaceHole

[dr_jt]

Maybe I'm just getting old, but that right there is plenty alarming and shocking to me.

To me also. I have to weigh the return on investment and making or carrying out threats to game makers is not worth my life. Be it imprisonment, fines, loss of employment or problems getting future employment. A game or item is just not worth the impact it would have on my life or family.

[SpaceHole]

To me also. I have to weigh the return on investment and making or carrying out threats to game makers is not worth my life. Be it imprisonment, fines, loss of employment or problems getting future employment. A game or item is just not worth the impact it would have on my life or family.

The problem is - people doing such things actually wont think that far ahead especially when they are acting emotional. Not to mention that i think that many of them probably will be rather young.

[regex]

Maybe I'm just getting old, but that right there is plenty alarming and shocking to me.

I agree 100%.

[FEichinger]

Hello there

I'm giving you guys a single warning here: This thread is not about the EULA, the TOS, the "sales-pitch", anyone's interpretation of the word "contract", or anything else related to people wanting what they think-they-might-perhaps-because-law-is-stupid be entitled to. This thread is purely about the article on Polygon and a reminder that you should perhaps not call for the heads of developers that don't do exactly as you say.

If you believe there are actual, substantial problems with the way the aforementioned agreements are laid out, feel free to voice your concerns - and preferably also suggestions to solve them - in an appropriate thread. This is not said thread.

FEichinger

[Mr. Scruffy]

A page ago, someone said that the devs should grow a thicker skin in regards to death theats and such as those wont get carried out anyways. I think, that regardless of the actual severity of the threat itself, a dev that reads such a reaction to the software he made, and potentially is accissible for free, can not really help but to linger into philosophical thoughts about what he´s actually doing to that person. I mean: Something is obviously going wrong, and devs probably starts to ponder his role in that. Even though it may entirely not be his fault.

You set out to entertain people (and make some money with it) and end up as some sort of drug-dealer, who got someone so hooked up with his stuff, that he indulges in death-threats over perveived lack of quality of it?! Shouldnt these youngsters rather do something entirely different after all? Or is it too late? I can only imagine that this can be depressing.

Trying to think of a name of some inventor with totally peacefully intentions inventing something that turned out to be a terrible weapon to put an -esque, behind it.

So it´s not just about ´oh my god! The last nerf put me on 20 more teenie-deathlists all across five continents - i am a dead man´, but rather about ´what exactly am i doing?´. The dev may not actually consciously go through these thoughts, i´d imagine, but it just feels depressing, instead, i guess.

Edited August 23, 2013 by Mr. Scruffy

[Matticus88]

The good thing about a game like KSP is that, its not a super easy game, you need to put time and effort and lots and lots of trail and error into it. This i think, deters the "CoD generation" from playing it, and joining the community. (not that all CoD players are impatient whiney brats mind you) It takes a certain level of maturity to enjoy a game like KSP, and that is reflected apon the community too.

[frizzank]

Best thing to do is just ignore the inflamed few who blow up on forums, and blogs. All they really want is attention, and responding to it only fuels their fire.

[KevinTMC]

1. The KSP community is amazing. It really is. Most discussions are conducted in peace, and most people that are a part of the community are respectful, and intelligent.

2. The KSP community is VERY protective of the Devs. They will come to Harv's or any other dev's defense at the first sign of criticism. While is is well-intentioned, I think that lack of criticism is a fault of the community.

3. I really hope that the devs aren't discouraged by us! I can only imagine the heights that this game will reach with continued development. With that being said, criticism needs to reach the devs, lest they alienate their community.

I think that's a fair assessment. Some people around here are too protective of the development team; others are too relentlessly critical; but overall, the community is excellent, and I think we'll be okay so long as the overall tone of discussion doesn't get dragged too far to the extremes.

Though I try to err on the side of gratitude, myself. Because I've found gratitude to be a great place to start from and to keep returning to, when thinking about and reacting to most things in life. (Not that I'm perfect at it, by any means...but the better I get at it, the happier I am.)

[karolus10]

Discussing TOS or concepts of early access is inappropriate here, because it's not a topic of this discussion and both TOS and early access are precisely explained on KSP and steam websites, don't knowing the rules aren't excuse.

Many enough people ranting and sending hate mail, death treats, etc. just because they don't like something about certain title can not only make Developers "feel bad" but also they can be unemployed very soon after the fact and/or project terminated if management assume that few hundred/thousand hate mails is an sign of something going terribly wrong.

Probably many of You guys remember what happened half year ago, when a lot of people in KSP community start raging about expansions/DLC topic after casual Q&A (and the last one) on twitch Dev-stream... after some time SQUAD promised give for free all potential KSP DLC/expansions for everybody who buy KSP before May 1st, 2013.

From other hand, this meant (my opinion only) immediate loss of potential profit from (not even planned at so early stage) expansions and it's much less sense now to made ANY expansions/DLC (requiring original KSP to run) at all... Players words can hurt, not only "Dev's" but the community itself.

[LaydeeDem]

Can we make this "treating devs with respect" extend out to the mod community too? There seems to be a lot of entitled douchecanoes there that seem to think that modders are obligated to update their mods. A good example of this is KW Rocketry. A lot of people sent angry comments to Kyle and Winston simply because they didn't post or change their thread title when the 0.20.1 update came out. KW is going to get an update soon, but, those who know who you are, please don't be an asshole when the post shows up. Us modders have lives too!

[Arran]

I'm around on the net for a long time, prolly longer as some are old here, and i seen things change online for the worse..

At first the Net was a gathering place for a few geeks like me, that found a new medium and beeing on the net was a kind of privalage, and in time when it became more and more populair, and know by the mainstream user, it started to get harsher and harser..

Today it seems to have reached a point imho that a group of people think beeing on the Net requires to be abusive, threatning and downtalk everyone that doesnt seem to fit their views, in many games if you are new and learning, its a reason for them to flame you, call names and such.. Any attempt to educate them is met with more abusive ranting and raving, sometimes even threatning..

I guess the Nets anomity makes some people think they have the right to be outright obnouxious a....s

Its now reaching slowly the point even that Devs are attacked as well to a point some of them quit the industry, and if this keeps up, that small group of people ruins it for everyone..

But i also notice its not just on the Net itself, its everywhere, our whole social society seems to become harsher and harsher, people loosing respect and compasion towards their neighbours schoolmates, colleagues, its everwhere. To me this seems like we are on a path to destroy our own community's and social structures..

And alot of people wish it was differently, but are to afraid to stand up against the minority that ruins it for everyone, or isnt capable to do so..