Negative Internet Feedback Isn't About You, It's Them
- Thread starter Greg Tito
- Start date
In other words, the internet has the bad effect of dehumanizing people and makes it much easier to attack someone when it's just an avatar on some website. Not everyone goes that way but it definitely explains why it's so easy for some people to sprout such vile crap. No different than abusing a computer AI in a game. Interesting read and something I didn't think of before, hmm.
... But what about when you truly deserve to have your ass chewed, or when the feedback is presented in a way so that it isn't hateful? Sure most content creators don't deserve the level or intensity of "negative internet feedback" they receive but to basically state none of it is meaningful is just as bad.
The obvious counterexample is (new) Sim City.
Sometimes your game really is that bad and you made some very bad decisions and decided to release a bad game for bad reasons. Then you will defend it vigorously for a year or so, and even blatantly lie about things, on the grounds that the entire internet are bad people for saying bad things about your bad game so they deserve to be lied to for saying bad things.
Yeah, I get what she's saying. There's a lot of hate for hate's sake. You have to ignore that for your sanity and integrity. But if there's an overwhelming consensus maybe you should think twice. Or once. She did throw a bone about approaching critiques with hard reason, but that was the standard 'of course not all [x] are [y]'.
Of course for your sanity perhaps it's better to treat it all as unwarranted.
Sometimes your game really is that bad and you made some very bad decisions and decided to release a bad game for bad reasons. Then you will defend it vigorously for a year or so, and even blatantly lie about things, on the grounds that the entire internet are bad people for saying bad things about your bad game so they deserve to be lied to for saying bad things.
Yeah, I get what she's saying. There's a lot of hate for hate's sake. You have to ignore that for your sanity and integrity. But if there's an overwhelming consensus maybe you should think twice. Or once. She did throw a bone about approaching critiques with hard reason, but that was the standard 'of course not all [x] are [y]'.
Of course for your sanity perhaps it's better to treat it all as unwarranted.
I guess that would be the american way, arm yourself and go to war...
I propose another way, don't go to war. With that approach you quickly realise hostility fuels itself, not only are you put on edge and wanting to interpret comments as "hate", but everyone that comes in contact with this attitude will also take a defensive stance.
And it doesn't take much for completely calm reasonable people to be put on edge and start ignoring all logic and reason, just tunnel visioning on winning some senseless battle by any means necessary.
In short, don't default to hostility and there will be far less of it, most people just really have no clue what they are talking about.
I propose another way, don't go to war. With that approach you quickly realise hostility fuels itself, not only are you put on edge and wanting to interpret comments as "hate", but everyone that comes in contact with this attitude will also take a defensive stance.
And it doesn't take much for completely calm reasonable people to be put on edge and start ignoring all logic and reason, just tunnel visioning on winning some senseless battle by any means necessary.
In short, don't default to hostility and there will be far less of it, most people just really have no clue what they are talking about.
Oh man, I can't wait to see this dude get chewed out for having the gall to suggest, among other things, 1) that internet trolls should just be ignored, 2) that you shouldn't meet criticism with emotion but rather cold reasoning, and 3) that it's important to understand the nature of the internet and what you face when becoming a public figure. I can't wait for the more enlightened denizens of the web to ride down on this fool for daring to suggest that a person take precautions or assess the internet rationally. Bloodbath ahoy!
Wait, it's a woman saying it. That's okay then. Stand down, tumblr.
Wait, it's a woman saying it. That's okay then. Stand down, tumblr.
Extremely insightful and true observation. It must have been a very interesting speech...
It's funny when you think how many people, how many professionals, how many creators of marketeers treat social media and the internet at large as a valid source of consumer or general feedback.
And yet, it's true that most of that chatter isn't talking to ANYONE. It's stuff people write, expecting that nobody will read them, especially not the people that they are addressing. When you are the post No. 245 at a public gaming forum, writing that Mario is a badly designed character and a stupid idea in every level, you don't really expect that Miyamoto will ever read it, let alone quote-reply you. Do you?
So you just write some crap, venting some acid, thinking that nobody will ever read it. Nobody that truly matters, anyway...
P.S. Case to the point. How many of us, writing replies in this forum topic, do you think have read any of the other posts here... We just write our own brand of "wisdom", post it and leave, never to return and never to read what anyone else wrote or thinks. The only reason we may return to this topic is if we get a notification in our inbox that someone quoted us...
P.S. 2. I read what the people before me posted...
It's funny when you think how many people, how many professionals, how many creators of marketeers treat social media and the internet at large as a valid source of consumer or general feedback.
And yet, it's true that most of that chatter isn't talking to ANYONE. It's stuff people write, expecting that nobody will read them, especially not the people that they are addressing. When you are the post No. 245 at a public gaming forum, writing that Mario is a badly designed character and a stupid idea in every level, you don't really expect that Miyamoto will ever read it, let alone quote-reply you. Do you?
So you just write some crap, venting some acid, thinking that nobody will ever read it. Nobody that truly matters, anyway...
P.S. Case to the point. How many of us, writing replies in this forum topic, do you think have read any of the other posts here... We just write our own brand of "wisdom", post it and leave, never to return and never to read what anyone else wrote or thinks. The only reason we may return to this topic is if we get a notification in our inbox that someone quoted us...
P.S. 2. I read what the people before me posted...
Is there anywhere that I could go and watch these panels? Were they recorded/streamed anywhere?
These topics are really interested and would like to hear them.
These topics are really interested and would like to hear them.
just apply a variant of the mst3k mantra
"its just the internet, I should really just relax"
People are dicks online. Thats what the ignore button is for. Use it liberally, without hesitation, and without regret. You have a finite amount of brain CPU cycles to work with, no need to spend them on useless things like trolls.
"its just the internet, I should really just relax"
People are dicks online. Thats what the ignore button is for. Use it liberally, without hesitation, and without regret. You have a finite amount of brain CPU cycles to work with, no need to spend them on useless things like trolls.
^That's the point I took from this.Scrumpmonkey said:
Filtering noise is one thing, but a big company run by marketers and executives more than anyone with any real creative ambition looks at public feedback as PR backtalk.
It's noise in an echo chamber; Something to be marginalized and ignored, or demonized and made into a scapegoat.
As a media company grows larger they become more dependent on finding a larger audience, which means broadening appeal. Eventually, individual feedback becomes completely worthless, and larger scale trends become the most valuable.
At that point, the best they can do is pretend to care.
And that assumes the consumer is trying to give USEFUL, VALUABLE feedback; throwing trolls and the Internet Hate Machine into the mix made everything worse. It gave the execs and their PR people a wonderful scapegoat to point to for their apathy. (I can think of one pseudo-academic who twisted internet hatred into a 6 figure payday)
Which is why I stopped bothering to send feedback to the developers at all unless I had a "face to face" encounter, and they specifically asked (smaller/indie developers are more inclined to do this).
Because giving specific answers to a firm that's only looking for broad trends and buzzwords is a worthless endeavor.
They don't care, so why should I?
As much as I tend to think that anonymous comments are useless to a professional on a day to day basis, I do think they serve a purpose when taken as a whole.
Considering the Sim City issue or the Diablo III auction house issue - if everyone is really pissed off, don't worry about the individual comments, but do try to figure out what exactly you did that pissed everyone off. On an individual basis "terrible idea, kill yourself" is around the most unhelpful feedback you could possibly receive, but when a huge number of people are saying it and your game has far lower playership than you had anticipated, time needs to be taken to figure out what you did that so offended the people, and why exactly they find it so offensive.
The same idea can be extended to many games that fall under the radar. Dealing with negative feedback sucks, believe that I know, but simply being ignored by the world at large is infinitely worse. If nobody has anything to say about your game, good or bad, then what didn't you do? Or perhaps more importantly, what can you do to make them love you, or at least hate you so you know what to change.
Simply shutting out the haters is a pretty good way to convince yourself you are doing a good job when you really aren't. Even if 'good' is entirely relative and 'hater' runs the line from 'doesn't like wolves' to 'thinks you're trying to kill the franchise.'
Considering the Sim City issue or the Diablo III auction house issue - if everyone is really pissed off, don't worry about the individual comments, but do try to figure out what exactly you did that pissed everyone off. On an individual basis "terrible idea, kill yourself" is around the most unhelpful feedback you could possibly receive, but when a huge number of people are saying it and your game has far lower playership than you had anticipated, time needs to be taken to figure out what you did that so offended the people, and why exactly they find it so offensive.
The same idea can be extended to many games that fall under the radar. Dealing with negative feedback sucks, believe that I know, but simply being ignored by the world at large is infinitely worse. If nobody has anything to say about your game, good or bad, then what didn't you do? Or perhaps more importantly, what can you do to make them love you, or at least hate you so you know what to change.
Simply shutting out the haters is a pretty good way to convince yourself you are doing a good job when you really aren't. Even if 'good' is entirely relative and 'hater' runs the line from 'doesn't like wolves' to 'thinks you're trying to kill the franchise.'
HEY! I was the one who called you a social justice creampuff! Thanks for validating my own insecurities Tito. Sorry you had to give me a warning for that.
OT: This article needs to be read by more people. The internet is full of crappy people who are not going anywhere anytime soon. Anyone who knows how the internet works should realize that fighting the internet is a futile exercise and it only makes things worse. Better to just learn how to ignore it, cope with it or even feed of it.
OT: This article needs to be read by more people. The internet is full of crappy people who are not going anywhere anytime soon. Anyone who knows how the internet works should realize that fighting the internet is a futile exercise and it only makes things worse. Better to just learn how to ignore it, cope with it or even feed of it.
I'm not going to sit here and say that a lot of what is spewed on the internet isn't the mindless bile of 100 hundreds of monkeys pounding angrily on their keyboard, because it is.
The problem comes when there are legitimate gripes about a game or its content and they go ignored because 1) The developers don't care, or 2) They are drowned out by the sounds of 100 monkeys pounding on keyboards.
The easiest solution would be for developers to actually focus on the quality of their product again, but I suppose I'll have to continue to deal with the monkeys instead.
The problem comes when there are legitimate gripes about a game or its content and they go ignored because 1) The developers don't care, or 2) They are drowned out by the sounds of 100 monkeys pounding on keyboards.
The easiest solution would be for developers to actually focus on the quality of their product again, but I suppose I'll have to continue to deal with the monkeys instead.
It's a 2 way street.
Places where the comments get most negative tend to be the places most ignored.
If developers actually listen, and are seen to listen, and can answer at least some of the more reasonable criticisms, then the audience is less likely to start just spewing crap at them.
But yeah, G.I.F.T. is, and will probably remain, an issue, and developers can, and indeed should, ignore it when comments get personal, or just pointless.
Places where the comments get most negative tend to be the places most ignored.
If developers actually listen, and are seen to listen, and can answer at least some of the more reasonable criticisms, then the audience is less likely to start just spewing crap at them.
But yeah, G.I.F.T. is, and will probably remain, an issue, and developers can, and indeed should, ignore it when comments get personal, or just pointless.