I recently had a long conversation with former Dragon Age writing lead David Gaider about what's in an RPG, his history at BioWare, and especially his new RPG-tinged roguelike deckbuilder Malys, which has become the "last hope" to keep studio Summerfall alive. The topic of fandom mentality came up, with Gaider lamenting the outrage, manufactured or just plain needless, stoked by people leashing their identity to games and other things they love, which can be especially fierce in the realm of RPGs.
"The RPG audience doesn't really agree with itself as to what an RPG requires," Gaider says. "And they could get very loud. The difficulty is if, suddenly, you end up with anti-fans. Then they turn from what you want, fans who would go out and spread word of your game and get people interested. But if you get anti-fans, they sort of do the opposite. They're very determined, suddenly, to see your game fail as sort of a lesson to others who would make games of the same type, right? And that, honestly, these days, there's some element of that present in almost all fandoms, but it's always sort of been there for RPGs in particular."
Gaider acknowledges that some of this comes from "the outrage machine" kept in motion by people who've made a career out of stoking or outright fabricating blowback over games in order to drive views and followers. But this personal investment in seeing a game succeed or fail, and getting hung up on sales and player numbers as if they demonstrate your good taste, isn't an isolated trend.
"You also just get, I think, an element where more and more fandoms are making the things that they're fans of integral to their identity, and if it's integral to their identity, anything that affects it or insults it, insults them, you know what I mean?" he says. "So they are so invested in making it what they imagine that, like I said, if they turn into the anti-fan, suddenly it's their personal investment in seeing that fail, or seeing the developers who made that decision be punished, so that they could point in the future and say, 'Well, see what happened to them? See how their game sold? You don't want to do that, do you?'
"And even if they have to sort of manipulate the data or move the goal posts, it seems like it's become increasingly vital for these people to be able to run around and make their points online. To the point that I think a lot of developers, more and more, are kind of withdrawing from the public sphere. Because it feels like, sometimes, when I talk to other developers, it feels like familiarity breeds content. The more access they have directly to a developer, like a name they can attach."
Gaider says he's experienced a lot of this through Dragon Age. He stresses that, even as a lead writer, he was just a mid-level manager with "pretty limited" influence over how a Dragon Age game turned out. "But I'm a name that they see online and they can attach to, so therefore I am responsible for everything that they either like or don't like, and can be held accountable," he adds. "So it feels almost like it's getting to the point where it's easier to just not have a public name out there at all."
Recent comments from Palworld publishing manager John Buckley come to mind. Following an explosive launch, the Palworld team found itself inundated with accusations, harassment, and threats. Buckley says the team spent a lot of effort trying to set the record straight, but eventually felt they were just feeding the fire.
Ultimately, Pocketpair chose to go dark for a few months to let things blow over and give the team space to focus on the game. This, predictably, inspired a new wave of accusations with a new angle.
"Fed up is the wrong word, but we were just all so tired of it," Buckley said at a GDC talk. "So for a couple months, we went quiet, and that was when the real 'Palworld is dead' stuff came. Our radio silence combined with the natural player decline of those numbers really fueled this 'Palworld is dead' stuff."
We recently learned that Naughty Dog boss Neil Druckmann has been "bootcamp-ing" the star of Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet after the harassment directed toward The Last of Us 2 stars like Laura Bailey. Actor Tati Gabrielle said: "Neil was like, 'Ignore it. No matter what, me and you, we're going to make something beautiful. We're going to make something that we're proud of.'"
An older example that comes to mind is a Destiny 2 dev who was effectively run off of Twitter by gamers who were hopping mad that their favorite Titan Exotic wouldn't be coming to the game. It was an embarrassing reaction to unsurprising news that demonstrates how angry communities can zero in on one person who happens to be visible. Plenty of community managers, who too often become studio meat shields, undoubtedly have similar stories.
