The other day a friend commented to me "I wish game developers were more candid about development." He was surprised when I said we are.

The caveat is that we're only candid with other industry people. Because gamer culture is so toxic that being candid in public is dangerous.

See that recent twitter thread about game design tricks to make games better -- filled with gamers "angry" about "being lied to."

Forums and comment sections are full of dunning-kruger specialists who are just waiting for any reason to descend on actual developers.

See any thread where some dumbass comments how "easy" it would be to, say, add multiplayer or change engines.

Any dev who talks candidly about the difficulty of something like that just triggers a wave of people questioning their entire resumé.

"Questioning" here being an absurd euphemism for "becoming a target of an entire faction of gamers for harassment or worse."

There are still topics I can't touch because I was candid once and it resulted in dumb headlines, misunderstandings, and harassment.

So while I'd talk candidly about certain big topics right now -- I know doing so would lead to another wave of assholes throwing shit at me.

(And of course I face almost nothing compared to women/PoC/lgtbq+ folk)

But here's the rub: all the stuff you ever wanted to know about game development would be out there if not for the toxic gaming community.

We *love* to talk about development, the challenges we face, the problems we solve, the shortcuts we take. But it's almost never worth it.

I did a public talk a couple weeks ago to a room full of all ages kids, and afterwards, a kid came up to me and was talking about stuff.

And I shit you not, this kid (somewhere between 13-16 I'd guess) starts talking about how bad devs are because of a youtuber he watches.

He nailed all the points, "bad engines", "being greedy", you name it. I was appalled.

I did my best to tell him that all those things people freak out about are normal and have justifications. I hope I got through a bit.

But I expect he went back to consuming toxic culture via youtube personalities, and one day he'll probably harass a dev over nonsense.

I worry about what other topical hatred he's picking up on at the same time. I guess this leads into a bigger point.

When you attack developers for "being political", that's a facet of the bullshit that forces us to keep things hidden from public view.

The elements that contribute to harassing developers over perceived technical slights are the same elements as all the other hate out there.

Next time you don't like a game, maybe consider just... moving on? What is the value of helping spread hate and toxicity?

If more people accepted that it's okay to dislike a game and move on, rather than doubling down on harassment, things would be more open.

If you are posting extremely negative things about a game you don't like, even with good intentions, you are contributing to this ethos.

Being critical and explaining why you don't like something is fine. Dwelling on it, calling out the dev, or just talking shit is not.

Let's be honest: dwelling on something you don't like also isn't healthy. Spend your time on what matters instead.

Also: there's this idea that developers are secretive of what they are doing with respect to sharing with other devs: this is false.

There's no real competition between developers. We love to talk and share, and so at best, a lot of stuff is "FrieNDA'd."

Most developers know what their other developer friends are working on, even between AAA studios. Open secret.

You know why we have to keep what we're doing secret from the public? Because of the toxic culture surrounding it.

(Some people will say marketing and they are not wrong but that's the difference between secrecy and WIDE knowledge.)

God help you if you let any amount of the public know what you are working on before it's set in stone.

Games change during development, this is a universal constant no developer would argue with, but toxic culture can't handle that.

If you think I'm wrong on any points in this thread, please compare the movie industry to the games industry.

Sometimes we know about movies that are "in development" years and years before anyone even starts working on them. That wouldn't fly here.

Shout out to all my friends who do community management for games. They deal with a lot of bullshit they should never have had to.

This thread brought to you by @jeremiads for asking the question, and this tweet: https://twitter.com/vectorpoem/status/911986062200729600

ADDENDUM: If you argue: "some developers deserve it" or "there are two sides" or "not ALL gamers" congratulations! You get muted.

Because either you've chosen to willfully ignore the points I'm making, or you are arguing in bad faith. I suffer neither.

Ah, and it looks like a certain well known group of dumbasses has latched on. As expected! Thanks for proving my point.