Thread by @JesseHeinig

Why the Internet and Social Media is a Minefield for Game Devs: A Thread. 1/

Fans of @trekonlinegame may recall @VengeanceGOD's oft-repeated refrain of "we don't talk about upcoming content!" This is for several reasons, typically learned through hard experience. 2/

First, when you announce an upcoming feature, there's always the possibility of something beyond your control happening and delaying or cancelling it. The further away the release date, the bigger the chance that something could change. 3/

But when you say "We want to do X" or "We are thinking about introducing Y" there's a chunk of your player base that treats that as an ironclad declaration. If you change or cancel something, you're immediately inundated with cries like "The devs are liars!" 4/

Or "You promised us! You break your promises!" or "Hah of course it was changed/cancelled, the devs are all incompetent and lazy."

Ergo, best not to say anything. 5/

Second, some folks out there are bad actors who will take whatever you say and try to make controversy out of it. For those people, there is nothing you can say that is good - they will always find a way to imply (or state) that you're stupid, or lazy, or racist, or greedy. 6/

Third, much of your audience doesn't actually know the craft of game design. What players think that they want from a game is not always in sync with what actually makes a good game. It's like asking a thousand people to design a car or a microwave by committee. 7/

(This isn't to say that you shouldn't pay attention to feedback from game players, but 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨 a game is distinctly different from 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 one.) 8/

Fourth, it's super-easy for a developer's comments to be taken out of context, with disastrous consequences. For example, one of the D&D designers recently tweeted that sure, it's fine to fire a 𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘣𝘰𝘭𝘵 off-grid to hit enemies on either side of a line. 9/

Super-casual comment - but players frequently look to developers as authorities, and their comments as being binding. Some players don't - they just play games the way they want and use what works for them, which is great. But not everyone does this... 10/

... and so one off-hand comment becomes a potential precedent: Your power that is supposed to affect 20 squares (100' x 5', each square 5x5) now might affect 42 (offsetting from the grid to hit two columns, and a little wiggle on both ends). 11/

Suddenly any power that hits an area and can be offset from a grid is way more powerful. You can hit more enemies, stacking up more damage. And it can do the same to players - more party members can be hit at once, but your healing magic didn't suddenly get stronger. 12/

What was a casual "Sure, you can do this for fun" gets taken by logocentrists as a ruling that winds up undermining the 𝘴𝘺𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘮 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘨𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘺 of the game. D&D and other games are built with at least an eyeball toward the numbers - 13/

How much damage and healing you can do, to how many people, over how much time. One offhand comment winds up making those numbers... unreliable. So the baseline, the rules of the game, are now no longer dependable. How do I balance combat when the damage output is off? Oops! 14/

(You may think "Pff nobody would actually make an issue out of that," but lemme tell ya - I've been to organized play games where a player actually brought a binder with printed-out copies of developer comments and referenced them as rules.) 15/

One tweet, one comment, one post can inadvertently throw your game's players into a whirlwind. Worse still, you might make a post that seems like a simple offhand comment, but context-free gets used in a completely different way. 16/

It's perilous for game devs of all kinds to comment on their content. Yet players demand it - there's a constant call for "communication" and "transparency." But the more you communicate with the player base, the greater the chances of a misstep that will cause grief. 17/

Thus... many designers eschew public commentary at all. And that's why so many companies use scheduled interviews and press releases, so that the message can be managed. Also why the community manager is a vital asset whose workload can't be underestimated. 18/

So, uh, if I didn't reply to your question or comment, that may be why.

~Fin~