Former World of Warcraft and Overwatch developer Jeff Kaplan apparently has zero floops left to give because he’s been on the warpath ever since re-emerging in the industry earlier this March. In fact, he had a some choice words for the most obnoxious of loudmouth haters. As he put it:
“If a game comes out, and you don’t want to play it, and you’ve never played it? Shut the f*** up. No one cares. […] We don’t need to hear that you weren’t into it. […] What is with this, ‘Oh my God, I’m so upset they decided to make this game that I have no interest in?’ I’m not running to the internet every time there’s a TV show on… well, I’m not watching any TV shows, either, but like, who cares about my opinion if I’m not going to play it? And if I’ve never played it? Why does my opinion matter on that? If you play it — great! You have an informed opinion, and good for you. […] But there needs to be a little more spread-the-love.”
Obviously, this is gonna be one of those quotes that makes the annual tea-spill list, but I want to engage with it now here in Massively Overthinking. Is Kaplan right, or is there room for some nuance?
Brianna Royce (@nbrianna.bsky.social, blog): I get where Kaplan is coming from, but I also think it deserves a little more nuance. I too am tired of YouTube shitlord culture where weird nerds who clearly don’t really care about the games/genre/industry are just performing outrage entertainment at zombo gamers for money. Look at how weird and creepy the Ashes of Creation drama was over on YouTube. It’s exhausting, it’s ruining discourse, and frankly it’s training very sheltered and misinformed humans who then show up in our comments with insane ideas about how things work.
On the other hand, I expressly want to hear reflective feedback and interesting takes from non-fanboys about why they don’t like things in games they don’t play. People saying things like, “I won’t play WoW because Blizz won’t do Classic or add housing” and “I won’t play LOTRO because of its current lag/UI state” are why those issues have been/are being solved. Devs need a mix of reasoned opinions from current, past, and future players. And so does the community unless we want to see games be narrowed and shaped only by toxic positivity.
I am assuming Kaplan was responding to dumbshit complaints from survival haters about his survival game, however, so I can understand why he felt like telling them to go away. We’re all real tired.
Chris Neal (@wolfyseyes.bsky.social, blog): Normally, I would suggest for some nuance, but considering Kaplan is talking about people who have given up on pointed and carefully constructed criticism, I’d say he is 100% right to say this — and with the words he used to boot.
We are living in an age when people literally marshal themselves in order to shut down media simply because it has the temerity to reference the fact that there are different people in the world. So yeah, I am done with treating these touch-starved cro-magnons with kid gloves and a sense of “customer is always right.” Toss them into the tire fire where they belong.
Don’t like watching or playing something? Then just don’t. As Kaplan put it, just shut up.
Sam Kash (@samkash@mastodon.social): Reasons and opinions for not playing a game are often just as valid as those for people who do play.
I was really interested in the art and anime theme of Blue Protocol, but I never tried to play any version of it once I found that there wasn’t going to be any PvP in it. I’m just not going to really dig into an MMO that doesn’t have PvP unless there’s a really good reason. And I can’t think of one right now.
So I’d say that’s a valid criticism of the game, and developers should be aware that had they included that feature, then I’d probably have played it. So voicing that, and rating it poorly even for skipping a feature that makes or breaks a game to me, is totally fair, and devs should be able to swallow that.
Tyler Edwards (blog): I’m not a particular Kaplan fanboy, but I’m 100% with him on this. The culture of dogpiling any visible game that disappoints is just gross.
Take Highguard. The absolute glee some people had over its downfall was insane. By all reports of people who actually played it, it wasn’t even particularly bad, just not quite good enough to stand out in a crowded marketplace. But people were reveling in its demise like the Highguard devs personally killed their dog or something.
I was saying in a column a few weeks back that some elements of the community seem to have gotten it in their head that criticism is an inherently virtuous act. It’s not. Constructive, informed criticism is a useful and important part of how games improve, but just blindingly hating anything that underperforms or doesn’t conform to your personal tastes is chud behaviour.
Every week, join the Massively OP staff for Massively Overthinking column, a multi-writer roundtable in which we discuss the MMO industry topics du jour – and then invite you to join the fray in the comments. Overthinking it is literally the whole point. Your turn!