Hacker News Reader

Comment by ajross | Hacker News Reader

> I strongly disagree with the crazyness displayed by a lot of people

But not strongly enough, apparently, to get that statement any higher than the fourth paragraph of your comment. Which tells me you're more interesting in flogging the bad game and its developers than you are in instances of actual, real-world harrassment.

This is the same thing that happened with gamergate too. "Harrassment!? Fine, whatever, there are bad apples. I'm not one of them, it's not relevant. Let's talk about how awful Those Women were instead."

I mean, look: it was a bad game. The developers oversold, underdelivered, and probably lied a bit too. The complaint has merit. But at some point the externalities of a situation mean we have to stop talking about meritorious complaints, because we're just egging on much worse behavior.

View on HN

I'm not sure what words you're trying to put into my mouth or why; but I feel like you're completely out of line.

I live in a country (France) where such harassement (especially death threat) can and will be acted on by the police if reported, and regularly are. I agree with that policy, and I agree with the recent move by our government to make it easier to report online harassement.

I absolutely disagree with your statement that if a part of a group is rotten, no matter how small or big, then all of the group's complaints should be ignored to avoid drawing attention to the bad members. This is stupid on a lot of level, easily abused (don't like that group ? just infiltrate them and make them part of something bad ! a great plan used by all of your favorite dictators), and frankly I can't believe anyone smart would argue for that.

By that same logic, we should not heed the concerns of those harassed online because some of them have done harassment themselves ! Great plan there.

> But not strongly enough, apparently, to get that statement any higher than the fourth paragraph of your comment. Which tells me you're more interesting in flogging the bad game and its developers than you are in instances of actual, real-world harrassment.

You're making a big reach there. The parent comment is responding to the article, which is towing the developer line that the release wasn't that bad, they hit their expectations, it was just stuff like missing butterflies - none of which is true. The harassment issue is a problem, but I see nothing wrong with a comment correcting core problems with the article first.

I take issue with your argument that we should bury meritorious complaints just because they happen to be associated with bad behavior. Taking that approach to the extreme, should we stop talking about politics completely? There has to be a better approach than sticking our heads in the sand and pretending that the audience is unable to hold two distinct arguments in their heads at a time.

I emphasize with your core argument that sometimes we need to discuss the bad behavior out front, but people have different priorities - it doesn't make sense to hold everyone else to your particular mix of priorities.

The fact that some people are nuts does not absolve Sean, and the fact that Sean perpetrated a fraud does not absolve the crazies making threats over a $60 game.

We can't control the crazies. They will always be out there and it makes no sense to focus only on them every time they pop out of the woodwork.

Yes, some simple maths:

In the US around 1 in 1000 people will murder someone in their life. So if you scam a million people then on average you scam around 1000 murderers. Getting death threats when you make that many murderers angry should be expected and actually getting killed is not out of the question. This is not a problem with the gaming community, this is a problem with society in general.

Killing someone is of course illegal, but I wouldn't go around taunting murderers unnecessary anyway. They are provably irrational so them getting punished wont stop them while I would still be dead.

That's some unpleasant logic that is seemingly sound - if you lump all murderers together and assume that every one of them is just waiting for some random Joe to come along to be the target of their simmering bloodlust.

But the vast majority of murderers know their victims and have some kind of relationship with them - spouse, significant other (at least at some point), drug dealer, relative of a victim, whatever.

"Video game customer" is not on that list.

English is not my first language so I don't really understand the last sentence in your post ("egging", specifically).

But what this company did was fraud in my view. He should be fined or put in jail. So should any people who sent them death threats.

The phrase "egg on" just means "encourage".

Then that phrase makes no sense to me. Wouldn't it be the same as saying something like "we can't critize Donald Trump for his criminal actions because doing that just encourages people sending him death threats".

I think that is exactly what he meant to answer yes, that criticizing the game or the dev's behaviors (with actual valid complaints) was wrong, because some people who did that also did bad things.

I, too, am bewildered by that line of thinking.

That is the implication, yes.

The promoters committed fraud.

Harrassment may be unpleasant, but I suspect they would rather that than be fined all profits and sitting in prison.

> I mean, look: it was a bad game.

But not bad enough to get that statement any higher than the fourth paragraph of your comment. Even Gamergate came in the 3rd paragraph. You're more interested in flogging a previous commenter than... well, you get the point.

The order of ideas does not necessarily represent their importance in an absolute frame of reference. When talking about lithium batteries you won't start with a disclaimer that you strongly condemn child labor in DRC cobalt mines.

Also, for my 4th paragraph, I'll just say that you're willing to grossly understate what the developers did which makes me think you are very biased about this, hence making a mountain out of a molehill when it comes to the least important part of a comment.

> and probably lied a bit too

> I mean, look: it was a bad game. The developers oversold, underdelivered, and probably lied a bit too. The complaint has merit. But at some point the externalities of a situation mean we have to stop talking about meritorious complaints, because we're just egging on much worse behavior.

OK. I will, for the purpose of conversation, cede your point that there is some point beyond which even just, deserved, valid, polite, and correct complaints should be ignored because of the side-effects. How do you propose we determine when this point has been reached?

> Which tells me you're more interesting in flogging the bad game and its developers than you are in instances of actual, real-world harrassment.

Yea, no, sorry. The fact that he put that eight sentences in tells you absolutely nothing.

If you can find real fault with what he said, go ahead, but this is just nonsense. You're condemning someone who agrees with you.

If a politician spouts outright lies (to the effect of "this next bill will do X, Y, and Z" a few days before the bill is signed, when it does none of those things, which is akin to what happened here), they justifiably will get a ton of complaints from people.

When you put yourself out there in a public space, and especially when you're charging people money, you risk major backlash if you're caught lying about significant things. Does that warrant death threats? Of course not. Does it warrant criticism, protests, demands for refunds, and accusations of fraud on social media? Definitely.

If the game dev considers public backlash harassment, he should enter a new line of work and/or not lie to paying customers. Except for cases where the harassment turns into threats, he has no right to complain. He's the only one who put himself in this mess.

You think typing a mean comment online is worse behavior than outright lying to your own customers?

Objective conversation should specifically reject externality. That's a fifth wave myth anyways.

Stealing and lying is definitely worse than being mean online.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com