Toxic spill
  • 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.

Archive link: https://archive.ph/mVaIY

  • echo64@lemmy.worldEnglish
    8930·
    10 months ago

    The comments in here are really disappointing and a reflection of where this community has gone in general.

    Excusing toxic gamer communities, accusing the developer of things for pointing it out? All because the game not in a good state is toxic in itself and really not what this community should be.

    This place gets worse every week.

    • Rentlar@lemmy.caEnglish
      376·
      10 months ago

      Sorry, I’m having trouble understanding what kind of commentary you were expecting.

      Leading up to release as soon as the first reviews pointed out bad performance (see thread), many on Lemmy were bashing CO/Paradox for putting out a beta-stage product as if it was fully released, and Lemmings and people at large were never real fans of being unpaid QA testers for game companies.

      Mind you, I love this game, and there’s a lot in there that I can tell CO devs put their heart and soul in. But I see a comment or a post every now and then saying “Lemmy is becoming so toxic, like Reddit” [1] [2] [3] [4] and I’m trying to figure out what exactly has changed, if you can help me out here.

      • Carighan Maconar@lemmy.worldEnglish
        197·
        10 months ago

        None of that excuses being toxic around the game though.

        At most, it excuses just refunding it. And then never interacting with it or the community around it ever again.

        • Rentlar@lemmy.caEnglish
          7·
          10 months ago

          I absolutely agree. There’s a line between constructive criticism/feedback and toxicity, some cases are obvious but others I don’t know where exactly to draw it. Those that aren’t interested in the game after being let down may be best advised to refund and move on with their life.

          Unfortunately, I don’t know where to strike a good balance to avoid both an "echo chamber where any dissent is extinguished’, and a ‘cesspool of toxic jerks talking ironically’.

          • Carighan Maconar@lemmy.worldEnglish
            41·
            10 months ago

            Eh, for game-released-in-a-disappointing state there’s always two points for me:

            1. A personal thing, learn to not buy day 1 or even before. Let other people do that, then avoid ever putting yourself in a frustrated position by simply never buying the broken/unfinished game to begin with. Money - and time - better spent on other hobbies, or well, other games.
            2. On a specific level, I always feel that just saying “I’m sorry, but because of X, Y and Z I don’t feel like the game is in any shape to be worth the money asked” and then refunding it is the only real proper feedback to go about it. Voice your reasoning, then undo the purchase to withhold the money. That’s more than enough brain space wasted on an unfinished game you’re not enjoying, anyways.
          • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.worldEnglish
            31·
            10 months ago

            Those that aren’t interested in the game after being let down may be best advised to refund and move on with their life.

            It’s okay to hold a company responsible for the sale of a poor product. You don’t have to give them a free pass and just go away.

            You can let them know what they did wrong, and if they’re smart, they won’t do the same wrong thing again, the next time they sell their next product.

            And any human being on the planet, when they are not listened to, will become upset and rude. The point is for any company to strive for the win-win, and listen to their customers, and not just try to sell them the next bad product and repeat the same bad cycle.

            • Copernican@lemmy.worldEnglish
              2·
              10 months ago

              For some reason people seem to experience the most rage, vocalization frustration, etc. when it comes to having their entertainment fucked with (whether pricing, content itself, etc). Companies can cause global recession or market crashes, be responsible for child labor resulting in death and dismemberment, or engage in flat out fraud, but those companies will never bring out the toxicity, death threats, entitlement, and communal anger like a video game or film/tv company that impacts the entertainment of the masses. When people used to think of the most evil company in America back in the early 2010’s, EA was more hated than Bank of America, Wells Fargo, or AIG. That never made sense to me.

              • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.worldEnglish
                1·
                10 months ago

                For some reason people seem to experience the most rage, vocalization frustration, etc. when it comes to having their entertainment fucked with (whether pricing, content itself, etc).

                You should never fuck around with the plebs and their ‘bread and circuses’, especially if your government is not doing well.

                Companies can cause global recession or market crashes … or engage in flat out fraud, but those companies will never bring out the toxicity, death threats, entitlement, and communal anger

                People are pissed off at inflation, the general cost of everything (including AAA games), laws and punishments not being applied evenly/fairly, etc., these days.

                I think the latter part of your comment is a bit hyperbolic (especially part of your comment that I edited out when quoting it in my response).

            • Rentlar@lemmy.caEnglish
              31·
              10 months ago

              For sure. I might have weasel-worded my comment with “may be best advised” as it’s not all cases.

              Toxicity is unhealthy, but I am optimistic it will become less so once CO and Paradox follow through on their promises. The two big ones being 1. actually being able to play the game on consoles and modest hardware and 2. mods

        • pulaskiwasright@lemmy.mlEnglish
          22·
          10 months ago

          Toxic” is different to everyone though. That’s why these comment sections always go in circles. To some people saying “paradox are crooks and they have no respect for us and they’re ripping us off by using us as beta testers,” is toxic to some. And to others it is seen as constructive criticism. So when someone says “this community is toxic”. I don’t really know what they’re saying. “Toxic” has just become a lazy buzz word that makes discussing this kind of thing pointless.

      • Copernican@lemmy.worldEnglish
        95·
        10 months ago

        For me it’s the over representation of self described communists that take over every thread to poetically or unpoetically just keep saying capitalism=bad and then do shit like justify bad behavior because capitalism=bad or pretend to care about making sure employees get paid while advocating for piracy of everything being justified.

          • Copernican@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            10 months ago

            I have no problem discussing political opinions. I hate how every thread gets co opted by un critical hot takes for the circle jerk of up votes. It’s frustrating that any post about digital media has the top comments all saying “Yarrrr, time to sail the high sees.” Or anytime there’s any news about a corporation, the top comment seems to be “fuck capitalism and those greedy greedy share holders.” Those kinds of comments aren’t critical, aren’t contributing to any meaningful conversation. On reddit I think it succeeded when you had communities of enthusiasts having conversations about the thing they are enthusiastic about. Lemmy seems to have a lot more people enthusiastic about a political position just try to spread that on any and all communities.

      • echo64@lemmy.worldEnglish
        54·
        10 months ago

        I’m expecting this community not to say that a company deserves a toxic community and that being toxic is a totally normal and expected thing.

        A few months ago, even , this was a place where people would talk about the game news and not revel in your average Gamer toxicity.

        Now it’s just, I guess, reddit, but worse because the toxic voices are louder in a smaller echo chamber. The people who don’t ascribe to this kind of thing leave. The toxic people are all that is left.

        • Rentlar@lemmy.caEnglish
          31·
          10 months ago

          I understand your point, and agree that you have received negative replies that prove this community accepts a level of toxicity that may not have been there before. (To me it feels like the same level, but perhaps I’ve just ignored it or become numb to it)

          I encourage people to engage in these topics with a level head but there will be exceptions at times.

          https://eev.ee/blog/2016/07/22/on-a-technicality/

          Reading the second half of this comments reminded me of this long read I was introduced to over in Beehaw.org (the evaporative cooling section). Left unchecked, only the jerks will be left and the nice people give up and leave. If a slower, nicer place for discussion is what you’re looking for, Beehaw was where I found that vibe the most.

        • Carighan Maconar@lemmy.worldEnglish
          31·
          10 months ago

          Now it’s just, I guess, reddit, but worse because the toxic voices are louder in a smaller echo chamber.

          Yeah I noticed that, too. All of Lemmy in fact. It feels like engagement is up, but only in select echo chambers of being angry about something.

    • Old_Dude@lemmy.worldEnglish
      102·
      10 months ago

      Its the internet though. I don’t know of a place on the internet where there’s no toxicity.

    • APassenger@lemmy.worldEnglish
      124·
      10 months ago

      I’ve played CS2 for weeks. Days of hours. Have completely enjoyed it.

      It’s not finished and they’re honest about that. Also, comparisons to CS in it’s finished state (easy to do unconsciously) overlook just how many DLCs it took to get to full maturity.

      I enjoy the game and have no regrets for buying. I don’t feel deceived since I could have asked for as refund.

      I think some of this is a specific kind of FOMO. Fear of missing out (on what could have been). I’m hoping they do enough to fix the parenthetical.

      Edit to add: my computer has great specs for late 2020. It’s not top of the line, but it has everything I thought it would need, CPU, RAM, GPU. That may impact my experience.

      The game was unplayable on my 5 year old laptop. But it’s not really a gaming rig anyhow…

    • Boiglenoight@lemmy.worldEnglish
      169·
      10 months ago

      It’s becoming Reddit. Which is what we wanted last year? I know what you mean though. There is a difference between now and then with our community. Probably related to user count?

    • Cypher@lemmy.worldEnglish
      717·
      10 months ago

      The comments in here are really disappointing and a reflection of what this community has become, corporate bootlickers.

      Excusing companies scamming customers because gamers dared to point out the scam? All because the companies quarterly profits weren’t up enough, is a really toxic state and not what this community should be.