Honestly, I've worked with enough small companies to say this type of censorship will always be a problem. The thing is, just because someone goes into an entrepreneurship, doesn't mean they will act professionally. I've worked for and with many smaller, 5-15 employee companies, and there are always a few owners, that will agonize over every bag of paperclips they have to buy because to them, that's less beers in their home cooler--they don't see it as a necessary expense, they see it as a personal sacrifice. Similarly, they will internalize any negative event in their business--like an employee leaving or a lost contract--in a personal way, and villify whoever they perceive as causing their ire.
I haven't worked with video game developers before, but I see the same behavior here. I see a lot of "did they really think that would work" in the video and in the comments, but the fact is "think" doesn't factor into it at all. Just because you have the skills and the drive to create a video game, doesn't mean you have the shrewdness or the fortitude to look at criticism in an objective way. I can say from experience, that there is a subsection of the population that will see the criticism as an assault on their way of life--costing them valuable Budweisers--and they actively look for any way to lash out at their perceived aggressors, whether it costs them in the long run or not.
That's not to say that the bullshit shouldn't be called out, just that the phenomena is by no means limited to indie games developers, it's more just a reality of dealing with small enterprises of all sorts. I hope the backlash will suffice to make people think before they lash out at critics (or better, make them think hard before releasing a game), but the core problem itself is never going to go away. It's human nature.
I haven't worked with video game developers before, but I see the same behavior here. I see a lot of "did they really think that would work" in the video and in the comments, but the fact is "think" doesn't factor into it at all. Just because you have the skills and the drive to create a video game, doesn't mean you have the shrewdness or the fortitude to look at criticism in an objective way. I can say from experience, that there is a subsection of the population that will see the criticism as an assault on their way of life--costing them valuable Budweisers--and they actively look for any way to lash out at their perceived aggressors, whether it costs them in the long run or not.
That's not to say that the bullshit shouldn't be called out, just that the phenomena is by no means limited to indie games developers, it's more just a reality of dealing with small enterprises of all sorts. I hope the backlash will suffice to make people think before they lash out at critics (or better, make them think hard before releasing a game), but the core problem itself is never going to go away. It's human nature.