The increasingly frequent "death threats" have revealed a dark corner of the gaming industry

Some time ago, Katsuhiro Harada, the executive producer of "Tekken 8", broke out a "death threat" sent to him by extreme players. In a private message, the player claimed that if Harada did not include the character Eddy Gordo in the game, he would attack Harada with a "hammer".

On the occasion of the annual fighting game event EVO, Bandai Nangong Yume announced the list of some characters participating in the upcoming "Tekken 8" during this period. Perhaps the player's failure to find his favorite character on the list led him to send this message to Katsuhiro Harada.

This list of starting characters has been exposed once before on Reddit

Coincidentally, Faker, a well-known professional player in South Korea, suffered a similar situation. Police in Seoul also found a notice of murder against Faker on the Internet on the 10th of this month, in which the anonymous claimed to "run to the dormitory of Team Faker of TI and hack him to death with a kitchen knife."

Considering the recent frequent indiscriminate killings and homicide predictions in South Korea, the local police can be described as a major enemy, directly sending police cars to patrol. LCK (League of Legends Korean Champions League), which was not yet over at that time, also had to strengthen security checks and increase the number of security personnel. Although the police have intervened in the investigation by tracing the online address, the identity of the anonymous person has not yet been revealed.

In recent years, whether for game developers or professional players, the number of "death threats" or "death trailers" in the game industry has increased. Being under the shadow of death from time to time seems to be becoming the norm for game-related practitioners.

Face the "dead" gamer

Earlier this year, a game developer named Andy posted on Reddit asking "Is it really normal to risk death to make games?" ”

He's working on a pixel wargame called Warside, which is crowdfunding, so Andy has posted a lot of promotional videos for the game on social media.

In fact, most of the game's reviews were relatively positive, and some even signed up for a Kickstarter account specifically to encourage him. But at the same time, there was some extremely negative feedback, some people in the comments section claimed that they wanted Andy to "die", others began to search for his offline address, and even began to threaten to "kill him" - but to Andy, he is just an independent game developer who is working on a game (not finished).

Some argue that the game's "similarities" to Game Boy Wars Advance, a game made by Nintendo Intelligent Systems (the Fire Emblem franchise), are responsible for some criticism of developers. Both are war-themed wargame games, and the style of art is quite similar, in the eyes of some players, this game may be suspected of "plagiarism" problems.

For Andy, though, that accusation may not be justified. First, the "GBA Wars" series is already a work of twenty years ago, and the borrowing of gameplay does not constitute plagiarism, after all, the entire history of video games is based on constantly borrowing from each other; The second is that "Warside" is about to land on all platforms, and even Nintendo itself does not care much.

Those who send "death threats" to game developers have different ideas: someone wants a full remake of GBA Wars; There are also people who want a new work with a bit of "retro feel"; Others simply don't like the game's graphics — but for these reasons alone, Andy is at risk of being raped and killed.

According to GDC's annual Game Industry Report, nearly 40 percent of game developers experience "harassment," the most serious of which is "death threats." Even GDC itself became threatened, and Rust's developers had to cancel a scheduled fan meeting on GDC because of the death threats.

In fact, in addition to those weak independent game developers, even some well-known employees of large factories cannot escape the fate of being "sent blades".

For example, "Battlefield 2042" released a few years ago, because the quality of the first version of the game is not high, so the reputation in some communities can be described as plummeting. On Reddit, some angry players sent death threats to developers on the Battlefield 2042 board, so much so that Dice Studios was so scared that it had to issue a statement to exit the Reddit forums.

There is also "Cyberpunk 2077", which has experienced several bounces, and the game was originally scheduled to be released on April 16, 2020, but due to the delay in completing development, it was not really released until December 10. During the "overtime hell" of ticket skipping, developer CDPR received several death threats, with some claiming to "burn them alive," so much so that game developer Andrzej Zawadzki took to Twitter to plead with extreme fans to "treat them like human beings."

Of course, if the reasons for these threats are still traceable, for game developers, there is no logic in the case.

Last year, there were rumors that Sony would announce the release date of God of War: Ragnarok in June, but it was later confirmed as a rumor. But the fake news alone led to a flood of attacks on Santa Monica employees, including a female designer named Estelle Tigani who tweeted about having sent her offensive intimate photos.

Previously, a Japanese player also failed frequently in SE's online game "Star Dragon Quest", which led him to suspect that the game developer did not let him win by "cheating", so much so that the 39-year-old brother posted 37 death threats messages to SE in one breath until the police arrested him by IP address.

For these inexplicable reasons, "game designer" seems to be gradually becoming a high-risk profession. In recent years, these phenomena have shown no signs of convergence, but have intensified, on the one hand, developers who are threatened by life, and on the other hand, players divided by "extreme speech", it is no wonder that the contradiction between the two is getting deeper and deeper.

An increasingly "extreme" community of players

Although some people may think that these "death threats" are no different from the essence of the trash talk blurted out when the Internet is online, they are just "saying hi". But for real game developers, the impact of these negative messages is getting worse.

The first is that the "threatened" cannot determine whether these extreme statements are true or false, and this situation leads to only one result - game developers cut off contact with players, such as withdrawing from the player community or canceling offline activities, and players can hardly comment on the proposed game manufacturer.

And in some specific social circumstances, those "death threats" are too vicious - in March last year, a Japanese player who was "frustrated by losing an online game" sent Sega 12 death threats and "arson" trailers. Considering the tragic incident that happened to Kyoto Animation before, the local police directly attacked him and arrested him, but this incident may still leave a psychological shadow for many people.

After the Kyoto arson case, SE, Sega, Key and other game companies have received arson notices

These big game makers often have an internet presence far beyond companies in other industries, but at the same time, they often don't have the security measures of a bank, and when that happens, the damage to projects and companies is incalculable.

From another point of view, most of the "death threats" issued by some extreme players in advance actually do not interfere with the decision-making of game developers, but affect the interests of the entire player group. As Katsuhiro Harada responded to the death threats against Tekken 8:

1. In order to prevent vicious incidents, EVO operators have to increase the security and operating costs of the event, but these burdens will always be passed on to players and players.

2. And the company's board members and lawyers don't like to be "intimidated," which is likely to lead them to cancel roles that were scheduled to go to war but were threatened with death because they "must be added."

In fact, if you want game manufacturers to listen to opinions, then it is still through normal channels of feedback, and it is unrealistic to "threaten developers" to satisfy themselves. In order to avoid these phenomena, many game manufacturers in recent years have also issued articles pleading for "more understanding" between players and developers.

Although today's internet speeds are getting faster, the barriers between people are deepening. Just like the saying "the good thing about the Internet is that it gives everyone the right to speak, but the bad thing is also the same", and if you want to have a more "clean" game circle environment, I am afraid that you can only hope that everyone can contain a little of their anger.